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FEAR OF INDIAN ATTACKS in 1853 prompted settlers to construct what came to be known as Bingham Fort. 2nd Street was lined with log cabins. The fort was surrounded by a mud and stone wall, shown under construction in this painting by Farrell R. Collett.

QUICK SUMMARY:

2nd Streetin Ogden, Utah, once called Bingham Fort Lane, was a pioneer street surveyed in 1851, the beginning of the Five Points settlement. Today a pioneer farm and 12 pioneer homes still stand on 2nd Street west of Washington Blvd.; these are among the oldest houses in Ogden.

Shoshoni Indians and other tribes camped in today’s Bingham Fort subdivision by a pond and in today’s BDO area next to Mill Creek. Chief Little Soldier and Chief Terikee set a tone of friendliness to the first white settlers that lived near the Ogden and Weber Rivers in 1848. After the accidental death of Chief Terikee in 1850 there was tension and conflict with the Indians, so Brigham Young sent more settlers from Salt Lake City to the Weber River Precinct to secure the settlement. With that large wave of settlers, surveyors laid out the land north of the Ogden River in the Lemon Survey. In 1853, due to the trouble with the Indians in central Utah and due to ongoing contention with the local Indians, Brigham Young ordered the people in the Weber settlements to “fort up”.

1853fort organized on W. 2nd; Bingham farm in yellow; this is a small portion of the Lemon Survey.

Settlers in the area of 2nd Street built Bingham Fort under the direction of Bishop Erastus Bingham and lived there from 1853 to 1856. The population of the fort was about 600 people, the largest fort in Weber County. The Bingham Fort residents petitioned to separate themselves from Ogden City so that they did not have to pay heavy taxes to build Ogden and also build a fort themselves without assistance; the petition failed.

After the fort disbanded many stayed and claimed farms in the area of the Bingham Fort Settlement; in 1864 the area was organized as Lynne Precinct. 2nd Street at that time extended from the mountains to 1200 West and was the heart of the Lynne Precinct with farms on either side of the road extending both north and south as far as today’s North Street and 7th Street (see map below). The rich soil and abundance of water made Bingham Fort Lane (2nd St.) a choice place for farming and home building.

1864 Lynne Precinct extended from mountains to 1200 W.

In 1889 Ogden City annexed Lynne Precinct and shortened the western boundary from 1200 West to 600 West, yielding 6 blocks to Slaterville. The area was now called Five Points. Mayor Kiesel renamed streets in Ogden in 1889, changing the name of Bingham Fort Lane to 2nd Street. In the 1890s Five Points grew so rapidly that some thought it would become the largest business district of Ogden.

In 1889 Ogden shortened the W. boundary of Five Points by 6 blocks; map 1896.

Journals, biographies and the history of the Lynne Ward provide information on the fort era, the Lynne Precinct and the beginning of Five Points. There are also many pioneer houses, granaries, a tithing house, barns, irrigation ditches and a few old buildings at Five Points that are still standing; the histories of these structures and the stories of the people who built them help to tell the history and the heritage of the community.

Following is a chronological history of the first twenty years of settlement.

1849-1869:

BINGHAM FORT – LYNNE PRECINCT

FIRST WHITE SETTLERS in Five Points area

In 1849* Mr. Rice coming from Nauvoo, Illinois, was the first white settler on 2nd Street, settling west of where Bingham’s Fort was later built. Charles Burk of Kirtland, Ohio, was close by, and he was joined in 1850 by his father John Burk. Charles Burk came to Utah in 1847 from Nauvoo, Illinois, with Brigham Young in the exodus from America. Mr. Burk served in Orson Pratt’s advance company that went before Brigham Young to find the route across the mountains into the valley. By 1849 he was living north of the Ogden River on pristine frontier land with only a dozen or so other families scattered about.

Charles Burk

At first Chief Terikee and Little Soldier set a tone of friendliness to the settlers coming to Weber County, but because of an incident in September 1850 in which Chief Terikee and a white man were killed, the Indians became more troublesome and the white man more uneasy. To help secure the land, President Young sent more emigrants up to Weber and gave Lorin Farr permission to build a fort that was known as North Fort and then Farr’s Fort. About fifty families located in this fort during the winter of 1850/1851, and all the people in the new fort contributed to the building of Farr’s flour mill. The mill was near Farr’s Fort on the creek running NW out of the Ogden River. It was a great advantage to Weber and Davis County as the people no longer had to travel forty miles south to Neuff’s Mill to have their wheat ground. The creek was now named Mill Creek.

Mayor Lorin Farr seeing that the new immigrants were taking up choice spots of land at their pleasure, thus throwing the country into confusion, engaged a surveyor in 1850 named William Lemon who began surveying the land north of the Ogden River; this survey was called the Lemon Survey in his honor. Territorial Road (Washington Blvd.) was the center line of measure beginning at today’s 17th Street. The blocks were 1/2 mile wide by 1 mile in length; each block was divided int 16 twenty-acre farms; streets ran potentially every mile north and south and every half mile east and west. This laid the foundation for the grid for the roads still used today. After the survey was done the first deeds for land were granted in 1850. At this time the Rice family moved to Ogden Hole (North Ogden), and the John Burk family remained on West 2nd Street.

YESTERDAY: 1850 Lemon Survey of Farming Lands N. of Ogden River with original land claims.

In 1849 Weber County was organized into the Weber River Ward. On January 26, 1851, Brigham Young reorganized the Weber River Ward into the Weber Stake of Zion, dividing it into two wards: the North Ward and the South Ward, the Ogden River being the dividing line. South Ward was Ogden City, and North Ward included all the farming land north of the river, about 6 square miles of land with a very sparse population.

Erastus Bingham became the first bishop of the North Ward with Charles Hubbard and Stephen Perry as counselors and Sanford Bingham as the ward clerk. The next week, on February 6, 1851, Ogden City was incorporated. This made it the third incorporated city west of the Missouri River, the first two being San Francisco and Great Salt Lake City.

Erastus Bingham and Lucinda Gates Bingham

In the spring of 1851 the Binghams left Farr’s Fort took up about six claims on the Lemon Survey on the south side of a dirt lane that later became 2nd Street, and Bishop Erastus Bingham began to supervise an extension of the Barker Ditch to 2nd Street. This was the beginning of the Five Points area. The important job of bringing irrigation water to their farms on 2nd Street was completed by the people in 1852 under the supervision of Isaac Newton Goodale. Erastus was 54 years old, and this would be his last and final farm (See Bingham/Stone Farm).

At this time 2nd Street was merely 4th east-west dirt road on the Lemon Survey, but within two years it would be lined with log cabins and known as Bingham Fort Lane, and irrigation ditches would flow on both the south and north sides of the road. It was difficult and challenging to begin to organize and civilize the land from the ground up. Hardly any of these people had experience making roads and irrigation systems, and they had to do these tasks with relatively few resources.[1]

In September 1852 Isaac Newton Goodale and Henry Gibson were chosen as a trustees to build a school on the north side of Bingham’s Lane one half mile west of today’s Washington Blvd. (today’s location of 2nd St. and Lynne School Lane). From the end of October to the end of December Goodale recorded efforts to get logs for the schoolhouse, trips to the sawmill, and the making of a door, frames and trusses. He even worked on the schoolhouse Christmas day and all the rest of the week to complete the new log school on December 31, 1853, just in time for a New Year’s dance celebration.

The Bingham School was completed on the last day of the year 1852.

The dance commenced at 3 o’clock in the afternoon and went to midnight. The next day Goodale tried to get signers for the subscription school. People who sent their children to school were expected to pay a fee, but it was difficult to collect since money was scarce. [2] Widow Gheen and Amanda Snow Bingham, wife of Willard Bingham, were the first schoolteachers. Slab benches served as seats. The school was known as the Bingham School. Within a year of rapid growth the fort became so crowded that a second school commenced in the cabin of Widow Gheen.

TODAY: Bingham Schoolhouse was located in 1853 on the NE corner of today’s Lynne School Lane and 2nd Street; there were few trees in the 1850s, and there was an unobstructed view of Ben Lomond, Mt. Lewis and Mt. Eyrie.

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Luman Andros Shurtleff, 1807-1884

Luman Shurtleff of Nauvoo, Illinois, was part of the exodus from America, arriving in today’s Harrisville in November 1851, a new member of North Ward. He wrote in his history: “We got into the Salt Lake Valley on September 23, 1851, thankful to the God of Heaven that I and my family were in the valley of the Rocky Mountains- – here, where the Prophet Joseph Smith had said thirteen years before (1838) that the Saints would go if the government did not put a stop to the mobbing and the persecution of them.” He claimed 50 acres north of 2nd Street in today’s Harrisville and later built two cabins in Bingham’s Fort.[3]

Record of Shurtleff farming lands N. of Ogden Survey, p. 19.

BINGHAM FORT 1853

On Sunday, July 23, 1853, the citizens of Weber County gave speeches in remembrance of the twenty fourth of July, the day the pioneers entered these valleys. Luman Shurtliff was called on to assist in this celebration by making a speech and giving a toast.[3a]

Brigham Young

Brigham Young arrived in Weber County and gave a speech on Sunday the 30th of July 1853. Because of bloody Indian uprisings in central Utah, Brigham Young advised the settlers to “fort up” as a precaution and for protection. There had been no violence in Weber County between the Indians and the settlers, but the Indians caused a great loss to the settlers by theft and fence burning, etc. After his speech, plans for Mound Fort and Bingham Fort began. Farr’s Fort was already abandoned at this time. Bingham Fort was located by a committee that included Isaac Newton Goodale who recorded the following in his journal:

Isaac Newton Goodale, 1815-1890

July 30, 1853-Sunday- We had orders to fort up from B Young

Aug.1,1853- Went over to Ogden City to see about forting up. We agreed to fort up. I was chosen one of the committee for locating the fort, which we located this day.

Aug.19,1853-The brethren commenced to move in.

Aug.20, 1853- We commenced to haul in grain.

Aug. 21, 1853-Sunday the 21 we was moving in. At five o’clock we held a meeting on our business concerning herding and other matters. I was chosen commander of the fort.

YESTERDAY: 1853 fort organized on W. 2nd; Bingham farm in yellow; Indians frequently camped in the center of the fort.

Bingham School house, the three Bingham family cabins, the Goodale cabin and the Gates cabin were included within the boundaries of the new fort. These three men, along with Luman Shurtliff, provided much of the talent and leadership for the developing fort community. They built the strategic west gate and wall first, locating the west gate by the cabins of the Bingham, Goodale and Gates. People began quickly to draw their cabins into the fort for safety. There were many Indian camps to the west, some to the south and north of the fort, but none to the east. So the west gate was built first and the east gate last, the east gate being completed two years later in June 1855.

Sketch imposed on drawing of the fort by David S. Tracy who attended school in the fort schoolhouse; west gate is the prominent entrance to the fort; notice “port holes”.

Luman Andros Shurtleff, 1807-1884

Luman Shurtleff wrote: First of August 1853 was elected representative by the electors of Weber County to the legislative assembly of Utah.. On the twentith of August I began to draw wheat into Binghams Fort and stack it there. Had taken up two lots (he had two wives) on which to build on the next day, 22nd. I moved in my family and we slept in the open air. The next day we drawed in lumber and built a board shanty and moved into it and drawed wheat and other things most of the week. On Sunday at meeting Bishop Bingham called on me to speak. I did and spoke of the order necessary to be observed by all in order to live in peace with each other. At the close of the meeting Bishop notified the brethern to meet at six o’clock to enter into arrangements for our own defense and safety..

… In the evening we had a hard shower of rain which went through the roof of our shanty and wet us and our things through. I went to work and drawed Altamira’s house (“a log house hewed inside and out” in Harrisville) and put it up on the third of Sept.(in Binghams fort) I moved her and family into it, and between that and another house was a space of about six feet. This I covered over and my wife Melissa and three of my girls, [they] took up their abode therein until we could secure our crops and move the other house.

About the middle of the month I had business to Salt Lake City and when I returned on the 16th I found Altamira, just confined, had a fine daughter, both doing well. The last day of this month I moved my family into the other house… (“to draw the house” means to put it on skids and pull it with horses from one location to another) [3b]

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To provide water for people and animals Isaac Newton Goodale changed the course of the Barker Ditch a little bit so that it ran adjacent to the south wall of the fort; this slight diversion in the course of the ditch clearly identifies today the location of the 1853 south wall of the fort. Goodale also surveyed a new section of the Barker Ditch next to the north wall of the fort. Eventually the name of the Barker Ditch changed to the Bingham Fort Ditch; it is still in use today is called the Lower Lynne Ditch.

YESTERDAY: Farms in the blocks of the Lemon Survey surrounded Bingham Fort; each farm was 20 acres.

TODAY, THINGS HAVE SURE CHANGED: Overlay of Bingham’s Fort on current road map of 2nd Street; Bingham Farm was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.

The walls of the fort were made with “mud-wattle” that filled a form built with stakes and woven willows. The wall was about 12 feet high, 8 feet wide at the rocky base and 3 feet wide at the top, wide enough for a man to walk on. Thomas Richardson said:

“The walls were made of mud. We did not have lumber to put up to hold the mud, so we placed upright poles, tapering from about eight feet at the bottom to about three feet at the top. We set stakes between the poles and wove willows in like a willow fence, then filled the space with mud.We made a ditch nearby to run water down to wet the mud. When wet, we threw it in with shovels, spades or anything we had. We built the willow forms as the wall went up. It was about twelve feet high.”[4]

Isaac Newton Goodale 1815-1890

In September of 1853 while building the fort walls, one of the Goodale’s young sons died. Another son was born in October, lived 11 days and also died. Isaac Newton Goodale buried the babies next to each other and wrote in his journal on 14 Oct. 1853:

“..These days are deep affliction to me; why it is so I cannot tell. The rest of the day I stayed round about home. I feel that all is right. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. He shall be praised for all His goodness to me.”[5] .

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Luman Andros Shurtleff, 1807-1884

In October of 1853 Luman Shurtleff and his wife Melissa attended conference in Salt Lake City and “had much first rate instruction, enjoyed ourselves as well and returned home on the tenth and found all well. The next Sunday at meeting I was called on to preach and spoke of the necessity of refraining from using profane and unnecessary language and other evils. After meeting I rebaptised a man and his wife and reconfirmed them and preached in the evening. The next Sunday I preached at North Ogden and instructed the people to move into the fort and honor their president by coming to meeting and obeying his council in all things.”

YESTERDAY: Detail of 1855 map from the Records of the War Department shows Bingham Fort located north of Ogden City; “Weeber Utes” was another name for Shoshoni Indians who camped along Weber River.

In the 1850s there were six pioneer forts in Ogden and twenty-one forts on the Wasatch Front. Bingham Fort was distinguished from all the other forts by its very large population, between 500 and 600 settlers, sufficient to make their own settlement and appear on maps for many years.

The people at Bingham Fort enjoyed their new community, and in the fall of 1853 the residents urged Luman Shurtleff to present a petition to separate Bingham Fort from the Ogden City charter as they were not satisfied to pay heavy taxes to build Ogden City and also build the fort themselves without assistance. Mr. Shurtleff wrote:

Luman Andros Shurtliff, 1807-1884

“… This fort was in the limits of Ogden City and most the land surrounding the fort was farming land, and as we thought a much better place for a city than Ogden City, and as our farms were nearby, we felt anxious to build up that place. There was plenty of gravelly dry land for a city and surrounded with meadow pasture and plow land…... After we had been in session a few days I gave notice that I should present a petition before this honorable body praying for the lessening of the charter of Ogden City to two miles square on the next Monday morning. When the day came I presented the petition which was read and laid on the table to come up in its order. It came up in due time, but was lost… We then presented a petition from the citizens of Box Elder and Willow Creek to divide Weber County at the warms springs near the point of the mountain. On this we had a hard struggle, but lost by a small number of votes. On the day before Christmas we adjourned until the second day in January [1854].

.. On arriving at Bingham Fort I found all well and glad to see me, and I was glad to learn that they were getting along well as I found them. . . I had a good time through [Christmas] holidays. Attended two parties [dances] with my wives and family at which I presided.. .”[6]

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Frederick Andrus Miller 1838-1922

By 1854 the fort expanded to the east to an area of 60 x 120 rods because of the increasing numbers of people arriving at the fort. In February 1854 Frederick A. Miller of New York, age 16, arrived at the fort from Salt Lake City. His mother was a widow, and Frederick had cut wood and built fires to pay his tuition at school in Salt Lake, in addition to working all summer. He was looking for work in Weber County, and Luman Shurtliff hired him in the summers of 1854 and 1855 for ten dollars per month. Frederick tended his farm and herded, and after working for two summers he was disappointed to not get the cash but received instead a pair of three-year old steers.[7] .

Wilford Woodruff

In December 1854 Wilford Woodruff visited and preached to the people. He reported to the Deseret News that the fort contained 732 inhabitants who had raised an excellent crop that season (Deseret News 4:157).

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THE INDIANS JOINED THE SETTLERS IN THE FORTS in 1854

Little Soldier 1821-1884

The Shoshoni Indians (also known as “Weber Utes”), were now led by Chief Little Soldier and were amiable to the settlers but were usually short of food. Because the white man had taken their land, the Indians felt that they had a right to help themselves to the white man’s food and animals. The settlers tried to keep the peace, readily acknowledged that the land belonged to the Indians first and did not try to stop the Indians from camping near by along Mill Creek and in the meadows and pastures of their farms. However, even after the forts were built in Weber County, the problems with petty theft, killing cattle, stealing produce and burning fences continued.

In September 1854 Brigham Young came to visit the Indians in Weber County. He distributed presents and urged them to settle down like the white man and cultivate the land so they could have something to eat and feed their families in a self sufficient way. The Indians seemed to feel good about the meeting. But after Governor Young returned to Salt Lake City, the Indians refused to be instructed by the white man and being short of food, they continued to act like beggars and parasites. It would be 20 more years before Little Soldier and the Shoshoni Indians would desire to become farmers.

David Moore 1819-1901

There were more indications of pending trouble with with the Indians, and in November an order came from Salt Lake City to Major David Moore to disarm Chief Little Soldier and his band and to distribute them among the families in Weber County where they were best able to feed and clothe them for the winter. In Ogden Major Moore and James S. Brown asked the Indians to disarm and to pitch their tents with the white men and share the chores and food. After much negotiating the Indians reluctantly complied. James S. Brown went through the crowd of Indians and took every weapon with his own hands. An Indian who disliked the idea leaped on a horse and galloped to an Indian camp in the center of Bingham Fort. Jame S. Brown followed him quickly. Just as the Indian boy reached the camp, Brown entered the east gate shouting to the people:

James S. Brown

“To arms! To arms! Turn out every man, and help disarm the Indians!” Men turned out quickly and surrounded the camp. Brown continued: “I succeeded in reaching the west gate just in time to wheel and grab a big Ute’s gun as he was trying to pass me. He held to it firmly, and [we] both struggled with a death-like grip. We looked each other squarely in the eyes, with a determined expression. At last his eyes dropped, and his gun was in my possession. He was full of wrath and a desire for vengence. I found him to be one of the strongest men I had ever grappled with anywhere.

I next turned to the camp and disarmed all the Indians in it, placed their weapons under guard and sent them to Ogden, then vainly tried to talk the red men into reconciliation… Major David Moore and James S. Brown tried to pacify the Indians, but they were stubborn and sullen. At last the chief’s brother said,

“Here are my wife, my children, my horses and everything that I have. Take it all and keep it, only give me back my gun and let me go free. I will cast all the rest away. There is my child,” pointing to a three year old, “take it.”…

This spirit was but a reflex of that which animated the whole band; “for,” said they, “we are only squaws now. We cannot hunt or defend our families. We are not anybody now.” But finally, though very sullenly, they went home with the whites and pitched their tents in the back yards. To us it did seem hard to have them feel so bad, but they had no means of support for the winter, and citizens could not afford to have their stock killed and their fences burned, and it was the better policy to feed the Indians and have them under control. They could husk corn, chop wood, help do the chores, and be more comfortable than if left to roam; but for all that, they were deprived of that liberty to which they and their fathers before them had been accustomed; therefore they felt it most keenly. As I was the only white man who could talk much with them, I was kept pretty busy laboring with them.

In the evening of December 3rd the Indians had a letter from Governor Young. I read and interpreted it to them. Then for the first time they seemed reconciled to their situation. Their chief (Little Soldier) was filled with the spirit of approval of the course that had been taken with them, and he preached it long and strong. After that, the Indians and the citizens got along very well together, and I continued teaching and preaching to the former.”

George Washington Hill

December 5th I took up school and taught the Indian language, or rather the Shoshone dialect. I had about thirty male adults attending. Brother George W. Hill, who afterwards became the noted Shoshone interpreter in Weber County, was one of them.[8]

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The winter passed and the Indians worked successfully with the settlers to earn their food and clothes. James S. Brown continued teaching the whites and preaching to the Indians until spring. When the spring of 1855 arrived, the Shoshones were given back their arms, and they bolted out of Bingham Fort, very glad to have their guns and resume hunting.

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WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BURK FAMILY?

Widow Burk

John Burk, one of the first settlers on 2nd Street, died in June 1853 and was described by Isaac Newton Goodale as“a good man beloved by all”. After his death his wife, Keziah Van Benthuysen Rollins, was known as Widow Burk and was recorded as such on the 1919 Vincy Barker map of Bingham’s Fort (scroll down to BARKER MAP below).

In August 1853 Isaac Newton Goodale worked for Widow Burk cutting her wheat.

In December 1853 he moved Sister Burk’s cabin into the fort and located it east of the three Bingham family cabins.

A year later, in December 1854, while living in the fort amid Indian problems and treaties, Isaac Newton Goodale wrote that he“went to the marrying of Edwin Bingham”to Phobe Burk, daughter of John and Keziah Van Benthuysen Rollins Burk.Widow Burk was looked after and cared for by Edwin Bingham for the rest of her life. She is also remembered as the mother of Elizabeth and Caroline Rollins who rescued pages of the Book of Commandments in 1833 when the mob destroyed William W. Phelps printing press in Missouri[8a].

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DESERET ALPHABET

In 1854 Luman Shurtleff and others began taking lessons in the Bingham schoolhouse to learn the Deseret alphabet which Brigham Young promoted for cultural exclusiveness and also as an easy phonetic way for non-English speaking converts and unlettered folk to learn to write English. It was a phonetic alphabet based on a form of European shorthand.

Luman A. Shurtleff

Shurtleff wrote: “About this time a man came into our fort and took up a school in which the Deseret alphabet was taught. I attended and learned so far that I could partially read and write after that order.. To practice [it] I kept my journal in that alphabet about five months beginning August 13, 1854. The practice of it died away and like others I stopped writing it and have forgotten all about it and cannot read a word of it and have lost five months of my journal.”

The experiment with the Deseret alphabet was not formally abandoned until 1869.[9]

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BREAK UP THE FORT & BUILD UP OGDEN 1855

In 1855 when the trouble with the Indians had subsided, the church leaders from Salt Lake City began to urge the large number of people in Bingham’s Fort to move into Ogden to build it up as the center of Weber County. Bingham Fort had become quite a town and was substantially larger than Ogden Fort. It was Brigham Young’s intention for Ogden to become the center of Weber County. Luman Shurtleff recorded his lively conversation with Heber C. Kimball about moving to Ogden:

Luman Andros Shurtliff, 1807-1884

“Brother Heber C. Kimball was quite talkative and asked me where I lived and I told him in Bingham’s Fort. He said What are you doing there? What office do you hold in Weber County? Are you not a president over all the Seventies in Weber County?

I told him I was then he said, Why are you living in Bingham’s Fort? Why don’t you live in Ogden City? You know you have no business to live in Bingham’s Fort.

I told him I did not know but I might as well live in the fort as any other place.

No said he. You know better. Ogden City must be built up and you must move there. You go home, call the Seventies together and scold them until they will sell out and move into Ogden City. This is but a small part of what he said concerning moving into Ogden…”

On the 11th of June 1855 Luman Shurtleff was appointed prosecuting attorney for Weber County. The next day Brigham Young and company came back from the north and held a meeting in Bingham’s Fort and urged the large number of people there to move to Ogden City.[10]

At that time many were eager to finish building the fort instead of leaving it. After almost two years of construction, the fort walls were almost completed. Isaac Newton Goodale recorded working on the completion of the east gates for the first twenty days of June, and on June 20th the settlers“raised the gates”and completed the structure of Bingham’s Fort.

Gwendolyn W. Shaw wrote that the fort had grown very rapidly and a great many people had gathered there until the place had become quite a town.[11]

Brigham Young

On June 24th the people attended a special conference in Ogden City where Brigham Young again advised the people to “break up” the Bingham’s Fort settlement and move to Ogden. President Young said he considered that Bingham’s Fort was not a good site for a large city and logically never would be. He also stated that if the settlement continued to grow as fast as it had done, it would soon be a large city and that it was his plan to build Ogden first. Isaac Newton Goodale recorded succinctly:“President Young preached. Our Fort was commanded to move into Ogden City.”[12]

In the summer of that year many people moved out of Bingham’s Fort, many remained, and some new people continued coming. Luman Shurliff was among those that remained. Erastus Bingham took up a lot in Ogden, but retained his farm and a second home on 2nd Street where he later retired. Isaac Newton Goodale also took up a lot in Ogden.

Concerning church affairs, a presiding elder, Thomas Richardson, was left in charge in the fort district under the direction of traveling Bishop Bingham.[13]

Isaac Newton Goodale 1815-1890

As people began taking up lots in Ogden City there was a heavy demand for water to maintain livestock and gardens, and there was no water on the Ogden bench. This was a stark contrast to Bingham’s Fort that had irrigation ditches on both sides of 2nd Street and was sprinkled with many natural springs. In September of 1855 Brigham Young appointed Isaac Newton Goodale to construct the Ogden Bench Canal. If the people were going to build up Ogden, it was essential to have a canal on the bench. Taking water from the mouth of Ogden Canyon uphill to the bench was no small engineering feat. When it was finished it was considered a miracle in construction, ran two miles and cost $22,000.

“At first this canal traversed only a part of the Ogden City Bench area as that was all that was well inhabited. Later it was run the entire length of the city and served the people who planted gardens in their lots. It is said the engineering work ….. was so accurate that there was but a five foot fall between the head of the canal and its termination…”( For details see Goodale Drive, Isaac Newton Court).[14]

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BINGHAM’S FORT – HARD WINTER OF 1855-56

William Ruffus Rogers Stowell, WRR for short (1822-1901)

W. R. R. Stowell of New York arrived in Bingham’s Fort in June 1855 where he had many friends and relatives. He considered his residence there as temporary and took a town lot in Ogden to improve as he had opportunity. He also filed claim for 40 acres in Slaterville. In October of 1855 Brother Stowell married a third wife, Sophronia Kelly of Bingham’s Fort, driving to Salt Lake City for the marriage to be performed by Brigham Young. [15]

In the fall of 1855 Chauncy W. West arrived in the Bingham’s Fort settlement having returned from a mission to India. In November he was appointed “presiding bishop of Weber County”, and in the spring he moved to Ogden. The collection and management of the tithing of all of the wards of Weber County was consolidated in one office, and the Presiding Bishop was in charge of receiving and distributing it where it was needed. Before the building of regular mercantile stores, the tithing office was the only means of exchange of commodities. [16]

Pleasant Green Taylor left on a mission to Fort Lemhi in Idaho, and Frederick. A. Miller tended his farm in the winter of 1855-56. He stayed at Little Mountain near the lake shore herding cattle for Taylor, but most of the cattle starved to death during this season that came to be known as the Hard Winter. Miller, age 17, noted that“provisions and clothing of all kinds was very scarce, and I had very few clothes to wear and not much to eat.”[17]

1855 also became the memorable year in Weber County in which great swarms of crickets and grasshoppers settled on the crops in the summer and hardly anything was raised for men or beasts. Brother Stowell, on account of the lateness of the season when he arrived at Bingham’s Fort, did not attempt to farm but assisted others with their small harvests and cut considerable wild hay to feed his animal in the coming winter. Snow fell early from one to two feet deep and the winter continued severely cold until the 21st of March, when the winter so moderated as to bring on a rapid thaw. This produced so much water that the country might be said to“be afloat”.[18]

The snow of 1855-56 was too deep for the cattle to find grass on the range. The limited amount of hay on hand was soon exhausted. Oxen, cows, horses and wolves died of starvation or other ailments. There were several mercantile houses in the fort that began trading in the hides of the dead animals. Charles Middleton estimated that enough cattle perished that winter to stretch from Ogden to the Great Salt Lake, could they have been laid end to end.[19]

In the autumn of 1855 W. R. R. Stowell had 19 head of animal and by spring of 1856 he had only 6. With these calamities the people in Bingham’s Fort were much reduced in circumstances. For want of animals to haul wood, the inhabitants of the fort were under the necessity of carry small willows which grew near the settlement to replenish their fires. These willows afforded but little warmth and the people suffered much discomfort during the long and severe winter.

Very discouraging circumstances followed this Hard Winter, a scarcity of food and loss of stock animals. Many people survived the following spring and summer by digging segos and pigweeds and eating bran bread to keep their bodies and souls together until the next harvest. The privations were borne with fortitude and patient resignation, the people dividing equally any and all provisions which happened to exist among them.[20]

By 1855 and 56 the fort was a gathering place instead of a fort for protection. Families continued to come to the fort, such as the family of the newly widowed Marie Goudin Stalle (Staley), who arrived from Italy in the fall of 1856, and built a crude dugout in which to spend the winter while deciding where to live[21].

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BARKER MAP

In 1919 Vincy R. Barker recorded a map of the fort inhabitants from the memory of William Grow. The residents that Grow remembered were those who lived there many years in cabins for at least three years or longer. There were many additional people who lived in the fort for shorter lengths of time that are not recorded on this map. The south side of 2nd Street between Wall Ave. and Century Drive was once lined with nineteen or more log cabins [21a].

1919 memory map of Bingham Fort residents

The Sam Gates cabin remained in the same location after the fort disbanded, on the north side of 2nd Street across from the Bingham cabins. The Gates family lived here till the 1890s. See map above.

One Bingham cabin remained on site at 317 W. 2nd St.until 1955 when it was moved by the Sons of Utah Pioneers; cabin pictured above on truck bed in preparation for move; it is now located in Pioneer Village, Lagoon, Farmington, Utah.

MOLASSES MILL and SUGAR CANE

Sam Gates built a molasses mill located near today’s intersection of 2nd St. and Wall Ave. Beets and cornstalks were first used to make molasses, and by the late 1850s the settlers grew sugar cane. When there was no sugar cane in season, the water to the mill was turned off. Some of the children of the fort discovered a broken spot in the rim of the wheel where they could crouch, hold the spokes and revolve swiftly for amusement.

BINGHAM FORT DISTRICT 1856

In 1856 after much of the fort population dispersed, about 25 families remained on a two mile stretch of 2nd Street from Territorial Road (Washington Blvd.) westward to Perry’s Lane (1200 West). There were also three or more farms east of Washington Blvd. These families became part of the new civil Bingham Fort District, which also included the colonies that later became Slaterville, Harrisville and Marriottsville. People were so scattered that it was necessary to civilly organize them at that time into a large district.[22]

Traveling Bishop Bingham

Bishop Bingham moved into Ogden and served there as bishop of the Ogden First Ward and traveling bishop to Slaterville/2nd Street where Thomas Richardson was made The Presiding Elder. [23]

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MORMON REFORMATION 1856-57

After the dire circumstances of the Hard Winter, many blessings were needed. A major event, known as the Mormon Reformation occurred the next winter. This movement was begun by the forceful preaching of Jedediah Grant, a counselor in the Mormon First Presidency, and was followed up in local areas with speeches and calls to repentance. Robert E. Baird and Isaac Newton Goodale took a prominent part in carving out the work of Reformation on 2nd Street under the direction of Luman Shurtleff, with a view to get the Saints to repent of their sins, their shortcomings and follies and to live lives of virtue and integrity before the Lord so that his blessing, prosperity, and peace might be more abundantly manifest among the people of Zion. They were designated to query or “catechize” each member with probing questions that underlined church activity and faithfulness. Each person was to confess his sins in relation to the question asked and then be rebaptized in a renewal of their covenants. The “catechism” of 27 questions was recorded by Luman Shurtleff and can be read in the History of the Lynne Ward.[24]

A little over 200 people in the Bingham Fort District were catechized during January and February of 1857. Early in the spring most of the people of 2nd Street were rebaptized in Mill Creek. [25] The blessings and peace and prosperity that were sought came about in an ironic turn of events over the next two years.

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10th ANNIVERSARY – “PIONEER DAY”, AND THE UTAH WAR, 1857-1858

On July 24, 1857, on the 10th anniversary of the arrival of the Saints into the valley and during their pioneer day celebration in Big Cottonwood Canyon, messengers came with the alarming news that the U.S. Army was on its way to Utah to put down the alleged Mormon rebellion against the Union. The settlers were shocked and feared the prospect of being driven unjustly from their homes again as they were in Missouri and Illinois.

Erastus Bingham and family left the celebration and returned at once to Ogden. Chauncey W. West had just received from Governor Young the commission of colonel in the Weber Miltia, and in March the following year, he was promoted to brigadier-general in the Nauvoo Legion (Utah Militia).

The Lynne Ward history recorded:

Capt. W.R.R. Stowell

“All the able bodied menwere mustered into service in the militia under Chauncey W. West to assist in watching the invading forces ordered by the general government against the Mormons. The U. S. Army had reached Ham’s Fork in the vicinity of Fort Bridger. The determined defensive position taken by our militia and by means of large scouting parties … was to harass, discourage and confuse, and to induce the army to camp for winter in the locality of Fort Bridger… Maj. Jos. Taylor and Capt. W.R.R. Stowellwere taken prisoners by their enemies.” [26]

Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston led the federal troops.

Buglers of Johnston’s army in the Utah War

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Mary Cruse Stone 1811-1886

One afternoon on 2nd Street, during this tense period of uncertainty about their homes, there was a bad electrical storm. Mary Cruse Stone was hurrying to their cabin (on today’s Lynne School Lane) to get out of the storm, and“she was knocked down by lightning just as she was near the door. Her youngest child, James, then a small boy, was running beside her holding on to her skirt. She was knocked unconscious, and the little fellow said the soldiers had shot his mother with a cannon. The force of it knocked him down too, but he was not unconscious. A ball of fire seemingly as large as a base ball, passed on into the cabin and made its exit up through the roof near the fireplace, tearing a great hole in the roof. It was around the time of Johnston’s army, and the boy cried thinking that his mother had been killed by the soldiers. ..” [later she revived and was carried into the cabin][27]

YESTERDAY: First cabin home of William and Mary Cruse Stone on today’s Lynne School Lane;it was struck by lightning in 1858; photo c. 1930.

Frederick Miller 1838-1922

In the fall of 1857 while others were in preparatory military training, or “sword exercises” as Isaac Newton Goodale described it, Frederick A. Miller, age 19, was called to go on a mission to Fort Lemhi in the eastern part of what is now Idaho “to educate the Indians and teach them the Gospel”. He left on October 3rd and arrived there October 27th.[28]

In the spring of 1858, Brigham Young decided to abandon or threaten to abandon the northern Utah settlements instead of fighting. Should the army manage to enter the Salt Lake Valley, it would find the homes laid waste by fire and the people gone. The army’s victory would be without significance. The Lynne Ward history reads:

“The people being in harmony with the general spirit and feeling of the whole church, took up their line of march for the southern country leaving a detail of men to guard the homes and property or to destroy it by the lighted torch in the event of the hostile forces gaining the ascendancy. Never was a people more determined to defend their rights and their religion against a crusade inaugurated by the very power and authority which should have extended protection. Nay more, who should have rendered them aid and sympathy in their undertakings to convert the sterile desert wastes of these mountain regions into cultivated fields and farms and make happy homes for themselves and families, surrounded for neighbors by the hostile savage of the plains, 1000 miles from any other portion of those cultivated and civilized inhabitants.” [29]

Thomas Bingham, Erastus Bingham Jr. and Isaac Newton Goodale were the men left on 2nd Street under the command of Col. David Moore, with “instructions to burn the houses and crops if worst came to worst and the Saints definitely must seek a new homeland.”

Frederick Miller 1838-1922

On the 28th of March Frederick A. Miller left Fort Lemhi driving Lewis Shurtliff and his wife with him as they had no team. On April 11, 1858 Miller arrived in Ogden and found it a“dreary looking place as the inhabitants had moved from their homes to the southern part of the Territory.”He too went south and found his mother living in Springville.[30]

Nancy Tracy

Moses and Nancy Tracy and his family packed up with the Saints and moved south for safety in spite of his poor health. They got as far as Payson, about 100 miles away, and Moses could go no further. See history of the Tracy family for more details.

After months of standoff and evacuation the Mormons and the U. S. government worked out their differences and the “Utah War” was brought to an end. Homes were still intact and The residents of 2nd Street and the people of Weber County returned gratefully to their homes. ” A fair crop was gathered considering the circumstances, the home guard in charge having performed faithfully their duty toward the people.”[31] Johnston’s army settled in Camp Floyd, in a valley 50 miles SW of Salt Lake City and remained there until 1861.

With the end of the Utah War came a new governor, Alfred Cumming, the presence of federal troops, and outsiders bringing new businesses to the territory. In some ways the “Utah War” was a God-send as the settlers were able to buy cheap the soldier’s discarded clothing, such as coats and suits, and the stationary army purchased supplies from the settlers. This, of course, put more money in circulation.[31a]

After the Utah War was over Thomas Richardson was called to preside as (branch) president in 1858 over Pioneer Road and 2nd Street area. Robert E. Baird, William B. Hutchens and John Laird acted as local teachers on 2nd Street.

Three families in the Bingham Fort District in the Marriott area requested permission from Governor Cumming to leave Utah Territory in April 1858, and permission was granted; two of the families were unhappy with harsh frontier life and the other objected to the theocratic government (See Melling Way for more details). [32]

Fanny Romrell Ducloux

Fanny Romrell, daughter ofFrancis Romrellon 2nd Street, married a federal soldier from Johnston’s army named Maurice Ducloux in 1859.The Romrellswere from the Isle of Jersey and spoke both French and English, and Ducloux was a Frenchman from Alabama. In 1860 Fanny and Maurice moved back to Alabama. It would be fourteen years before she would return.

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ONE CABIN THAT SAW THE PASSAGE OF THE EVENTS OF THE 1850s STILL STANDS: Log cabin of Erastus Bingham located today in Lagoon’s Pioneer Village, Farmington, Utah.

1860s: INDIANS, HOME BUILDING and ADVENT of RAILROAD

“LYNNE 5th” DISTRICT OF THE CHURCH

Robert E. Baird, 1817-1875

In 1863 2nd Street was ecclesiastically organized into the 5th Ecclesiastical District of the LDS Church, called Lynne 5th or Lynne District for short. Lynne was the name of the postal route through the Bingham Fort Settlement. Robert E. Baird from Ireland was branch president with Daniel F. Thomas from Wales and James Field as counselors. All the presidency lived in today’s area of 2nd Street and 1000 West.

At this time there was little separation between the branch and civil government. In 1864 Robert E. Baird was appointed the first Justice of the Peace and Edward Stone constable.

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Frederick Andrus Miller 1838-1922

Emigrants continued to come into Weber County, and Frederick A. Miller, age 23, was called to help them across the high plains. William Hutchens donated a fine pair of oxen named Buck and Brin to the Church to help bring the immigrants across the plains. In April of 1861 Frederick Miller started for Omaha “in Joseph Horn’s company after people who were not able to bring themselves to Utah. In crossing the plains, I herded the cattle at night and had a good time and plenty of work. It was amusing to see the emigrants gathering buffalo chips for fuel and helping to take care of the cattle. This was all new to them. On our way home we met the U.S. Army which had been called back from Utah on account of the rebellion in the Southern States.”[33] Many new emigrants were attracted to the rich soil of the Bingham Fort Settlement.

2nd SCHOOLHOUSE NAMED MILL CREEK SCHOOL, 1863

The Bingham School was used for ten years, from 1853 to 1863. By this time the increased population required a larger school.[34] The new Mill Creek schoolhouse was made of logs and had a large rock fireplace and chimney. It was located one mile west of Five Points on the corner of Mill Creek Lane and 2nd Street in 1863. Mill Creek Lane ran from 2nd Street to 12th Street and was located where today’s railroad tracks run. After the tracks were laid Mill Creek Lane was pushed to the west of the tracks.

The 1863 Mill Creek School had a large rock fireplace and chimney; it was located on the corner of 2nd Street and Mill Creek Lane (today’s RR tracks).

LEMON SURVEY shows the location of the Bingham School in the middle of the old fort and the Mill Creek Schoolhouse on the corner of 2nd Street and Mill Creek Lane.

Following are two interesting stories that happened at the Mill Creek School in the 1860s, an amusing snake story and a serious Indian encounter.

FIRST STORY: SNAKE IN THE MILL CREEK SCHOOLHOUSE

Amanda Snow Bingham

In 1864 Mrs. Amanda Bingham was the teacher, and on a chilly fall day she made the first fire of the season in the fireplace. When the fire began burning brightly, “one of the smaller boys called out excitedly, “Look at that big snake.” Startled, the children looked up and saw a huge bull snake crawling out of a hole between the rocks of the hearth in front of the fireplace. The teacher screamed and jumped on to her desk; the little girls began to cry and shrink as far away from the fireplace as possible, but the boys seemed quite unconcerned. However, all watched breathlessly as the snake wriggled out of its confining quarters. It must have been difficult because.. it raised its head, as though straining all its might to pull the rest of its body out of the hole, and the farther it got out, the higher it raised itself in the air until it seemed unbelievably large and fearsome looking. .. and there were small legs on the snake’s belly. Finally it dropped to the floor and wriggled loose. After it was all out, it lay still for a moment. It seemed quite dumb and not at all alert. One of the boys said, “That is just a bull snake; it won’t hurt anyone, it eats frogs.” Then Mrs. Bingham called to one of the boys to open the door so the snake could go outside. As soon as it left the room, the boy slammed the door shut. ..The snake was six or eight feet long.”

SECOND STORY: DRAMA BETWEEN THE INDIANS AND THE CHILDREN C. 1864

Another dramatic incident occurred in the Mill Creek Schoolhouse in about 1864 between the children and the Indians who came begging from the children at lunch time.

The Indian women were always begging from the settlers and when they were camped in the meadows and school was in session the women used to come to the schoolhouse at noon and beg the children’s lunches. It wasn’t very often that Mary Hutchens took her lunch when she went to school; she preferred to run home and back.

Mary Elizabeth Hutchens c. 1872

One day as she neared the schoolhouse for the afternoon’s session, she saw a crowd of Indians at the schoolhouse, some on horseback, and they all seemed to be in a rather serious mood, as they were talking and gesticulating. Mary had always been told that if she minded her business, no harm would come to her, and as she had been use to Indians all her life, she had no fear in approaching the crowd. Then too, she saw her teacher Mrs. (Amanda) Bingham coming down the street, so she figured she would be safe.

They arrived about the same time. Mary heard Mrs. Bingham ask what was the trouble, and the Indian chiefs closed about her and commenced talking excitedly. They conversed together in the Indian language for quite a while.Mary turned to one of the school girls and said, “What is the matter?”

The little girl answered that during the noon hour quite a number of the squaws had come begging for the children’s lunches and that a number of them had little nursing babies and that the boys made fun of the squaws for exposing their breasts so the squaws went away.

Mary looked about her. The teacher was talking very earnestly to the Indian chiefs, and they apparently were becoming quieter. She noticed too that a lot of the children were already in the schoolhouse. Then Mrs. Bingham called the children to gather together into the schoolroom and when they got inside they found a number already there, also two or three Indians; and following closely on the heels of the children from outside, came the rest of the Indians, until the room was soon crowded to capacity.

Then the teacher called for order and told the children that the Indians had come to report that some of the boys had insulted their squaws by making fun of them. She asked what boys were guilty of the offense and some owned up to the deed; others had to be named, but at least a half dozen were designated as being parties to the offense. They were the larger boys from 11 to 12 years of age and one was her boy.

Then she said that the Indians were demanding the boys so they could punish them as they felt they deserved, but that she had finally prevailed on their letting her do the whipping, though they would superintend the punishment and decide when each boy had had enough.

Then she asked if the boys would rather she did the whipping or turn them over to the Indians.Of course the boys agreed that it was preferable for her to whip them. Then she had them go out and bring in three green willows each. She braided three together and whipped each boy with a new braided willow whip until the Indians in charge agreed that the culprit had been punished enough; then she took another boy and punished him. It took a long time and the teacher appeared exhausted when it was finished.The boys were crying badly, so were the smaller girls. It was a tense and critical time, and it frightened one to hear the falling of the whip, the outcries of the boys and the grunts of satisfaction from the Indians at the punishment.

Then the Indians filed out of the schoolroom after telling the teacher things had been settled to their satisfaction, and as they left the school ground on their ponies they whooped in a bloodcurdling manner and caused quite a commotion.

Then the teacher very seriously addressed the pupils – she told them how very near they had come to being seriously hurt by the Indians, and that if the boys had been delivered into their hands there was no telling what might have happened to them, and the result would have been that all of the settlers in the valley might have suffered; that the Indians were wild and primitive and they could not understand that the boy’s comments had been but a crude joke. She explained that Brigham Young had made a treaty with the Indians that the white people would live at peace with them; and that the Indians had been more honorable than the boys in this instance because they had not taken the boys while she was away but had waited until she had come before taking action; that the children must learn to respect the rights of the Indians as the country really belonged to them first; and that the white people were the interlopers and should therefore always treat the Indians with respect, as there were just a handful of white people and many thousands of Indians in the valley.

The boys were very much subdued, and they listened intently, as did the rest of the children, and as it was impossible to settle down to studying after the awful incident, the teacher dismissed the school and the children went home.Mary told her father about it and he agreed with Mrs. Bingham in everything she had said and done, and said she had averted a very serous catastrophe by punishing the boys and settling the dispute to the satisfaction of the Indians then and there. He warned the children again not to go into the Indian camps but to keep to the roadways when they left home and to be courteous to the Indians always.[35]

SWIMMING

Because of the proximity of the school to Mill Creek, the children often swam in the swimming hole at recess in segregated groups during the 1860s and the 1870s. When it was the girls turn to swim, they wore their petticoats, afterwards hanging them on a bush to dry.[36]

Over the following years kids continued to swim in the Mill Creek swimming hole, even until the 1950s; it was located east of the RR bridge over Mill Creek near the end of 7th St; photo below shows Yvona Clayton and Macel Stone at the Mill Creek swimming hole in 1927.

INDIAN CAMPS ON BOTH SIDES OF 2ND STREET IN THE 1860S

Many of the migratory Indians set up camps in the meadows of 2nd Street along Mill Creek, next to the ponds, the wetlands or the irrigation ditches. One spring day in about 1865 William and Eliza Hutchens left two daughters at home in the area of today’s 2nd and 1000 West while they went to Ogden. While they were gone the Indians began migrating and filled Washington Ave and 2nd Street as they sought places for their camps. All day the roads were crowded with Indians moving west and settling in the meadows.

The girls were afraid that the Indians would see them alone and hid in the sheep pen. But the Indians took no notice of the children.“Their parents were delayed getting home because the road was so crowded with Indians.”[37]

Mary Elizabeth Hutchens c. 1872

Several tribes would camp in the meadows around 2nd Street at the same time. Mary Hutchens was a child but could tell the chiefs apart by the way that they wore their hair. Indian Jack had the longest hair of any of the chiefs. He wore his hair parted in the middle with beads strung into the braids that rattled as he walked. No other man of his tribe dared to dress his hair like the chief except his own sons.

Little Soldier parted his hair in the middle, crossed the braids in the back and then brought them over his shoulder. No one except his sons could wear their hair that way.[37a]

While living at 2nd and 1000 West the Hutchens children like to sleep outside on warm nights on the roof of their shed, making their bed by laying their blankets in the clean straw on the roof. On hot nights their parents would sleep there too. Sometimes on nights like these, when the Indians camped by Mill Creek, they could lay here quietly and watch the Indians at their camp fires singing or dancing their many ceremonial dances. “Some [dances were] so fierce it made them shiver and others so majestic and solemn that it made one want to weep. Then others were just the opposite – almost enticing them into jumping up and down in merriment too.”[37b]

INDIANS AND ART STONE

It was not uncommon for the Indians to come to the settlers’ houses to visit or to ask for things they needed. But in the 1850s and early 1860s it was not considered safe for the settlers to go casually into the Indian camps. The white children were cautioned to always stay on the roads, be respectful to the Indians and never go into the Indian camps. Of course, there are always exceptions, and the exception to this protocol was Arthur Stone from England who developed a more personal friendship with some of the young Indian bucks.

“Art” was thirteen years old when his parents settled in Bingham’s Fort in 1854. From 2ndStreet he could look into the Indian camps and see young men practicing to be warriors. They would paint their face with different colors of clay, ride bareback and practice horse maneuvers and target shooting, and yell war cries. There were numerous tribes of Indians encamped in the meadows simultaneously and the wicki-ups of the chiefs were decorated with rows and rows of scalps. Art was fascinated.

Arthur Stone (1841-1876)

By the mid 1860s Art was a great favorite with the Indians. On Sunday, when there was never any work in the fields, Art would be surrounded by a group of Indian bucks, and he participated in their games of all kinds. Sometimes it was riding horses, and Art had a wonderful riding horse; the saddle and bridle trappings were ornamented or embroidered beautifully with Indian handwork. He had a wonderful suit of buckskin with leggings, moccasins, etc. to match. Everything he had seemed to be as nice as the greatest chiefs’ sons. The Indians seemed to admire him greatly. His face was painted like the Indian’s faces as he joined them in their games.

Art was a fiddler for dances, and it was not unusual for Indian bucks to come to the Mormon dances. However the bucks never danced with white girls, just with each other or a white boy. But Art took an Indian with him to the dances who was handsomely dressed in white doe-skin, heavily embroidered and fringed. He was a beautiful dancer, and he danced with white girls. The girls liked to dance with that Indian as he could danced as many fancy steps as any of the white boys.

THE CARDON MILL 1863

At 507 Washington Blvd. (then called Main Street) John (Jean) and Anna Furrer Cardon built a log cabin in c. 1863 and managed a general merchandise store at 503 Washington Blvd. Adjacent to their home they built the first carding mill in Weber County.

They dug a loop on the Bingham Fort ditch to supply power for the mill. John made a water wheel, tables and pickers of native lumber. The iron used in the machinery was brought from the East by ox team. After the mill was completed, John and his wife did all the carding at night after the farm work was finished.

The wool was made into batts or quilts and rolls from which yarn was made. These batts and rolls were held or pinned together with thorns from Hawthorne bushes. Wool was brought to this mill from all over Weber and Cache Counties. It was quite successful, and they operated this mill for about fifteen years.

DOCTORS AND MEDICINE ON THE FRONTIER

Jean Cardon immigrated from Italy and Anna from Switzerland. Anna received medical training in Switzerland practiced medicine in the Bingham Fort District after her arrival in 1857, often setting broken bones and once even sewing on the scalp of an injured youth. Her service was provided without charge because Brigham Young had counseled her many years earlier that her mission was to use her medical knowledge in healing the sick and needy without remuneration and great would be her blessings. She traveled on horseback to visit the sick.[39]

YESTERDAY: The Cardons in front of their brick house at 507 Washington Blvd.; their 1863 log cabin was replaced with a rock house in 1866 with this brick house in 1887.

Doctors were only called in emergencies. Midwives usually assisted in home births (see Stone Pond Road for story of home birth), families were knowledgeable in home remedies, and Indians shared their knowledge of herbs and so forth.

William Hutchens

“When William Hutchens was cutting wood his ax slipped and cut his foot just between his first and second toes… When his shoe was removed it was an awful looking cut. [Eliza] washed it and got the the blood stopped. Then she covered it with wood ashes and bound it up. The wood ashes were to disinfect it. It healed rapidly and was all right again before very long.”[39a]

One time Eliza Hutchens was sick for a long time and couldn’t regain her strength. Many cures were tried to no avail. Finally the Indian medicine man came and made a remedy from the castors of a dead beaver. Eliza took it everyday, and it wasn’t long before she was fully recovered.[39b]

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MR. TAFT AND LYNNE POST OFFICE 1866

In 1863 the assistant Ogden postmaster, Walter Thompson, named the postal route on 2nd Street “Lynne” after his native Lynne, Scotland. The word Lynne is derived from an old Celtic word “lenna” meaning pool or lake, and the central feature of beauty on 2nd Street was Stone’s Pond.

Three years later, in 1866, the government established a post office in the cabin of Lewis Taft at today’s address of 235 W. 2nd Street; it was known as the Lynne Post Office. [40]

“Old Mr. TAft was the postmaster. He was a tall, spare old man coming originally from Vermont. He was very well educated. Only had one son. He was very kind o all the children and the children loved him. On the 4th of July and the 24th he invariably marched with the little boys in the parade, organizing them into groups. He was a natural musician. He could play most anything, and he made his own instruments. At one time he made enough fifes out of willows for a whole group of boys, and he taught them to play so well that he led them in a street parade, and they played the simple tunes then prevalent, all playing together on hand-made fifes.” [40a]

THE BEAUTIFUL VIEW FROM LYNNE & INDIAN CAMPS IN THE DISTANCE

Lynne was a beautiful location with grassy meadows, creeks, springs, and irrigation ditches, but there were not many trees. In the 1860s there were not many trees in the county except cottonwoods by the creeks and rivers, so there was a wide and distant view from 2nd Street northward all the way to the Hot Springs. One house could be viewed at the Hot Springs, and that was the road-house where the stage horses fed. Indian camps could also be seen in the distance. At that time Indian camps extended from the Hot Springs to the Sand Ridge (Roy). Present tree growth now obscures the old view to the Hot Springs. [40b]

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TODAY – Beautiful view of Ben Lomond from West 2nd St.; photo 2010

TODAY – Beautiful view of Ben Lomond from Five Points.

LYNNE PRECINCT 1864

With the growth of the Mormon branch, the school, two mills and a post office, there was now sufficient growth in the settlement of 2nd Street to civilly organize a precinct that was given the same name as the post office: Lynne.

Robert E. Baird, the Mormon branch president, was appointed Justice of the Peace of the new Lynne Precinct in 1864. In the theocratic government of the Utah Territory, Church officials and government or city officers were often the same. If a vote were held, there was generally a single slate of officers prescribed by the local Mormon leaders; these nominations were seldom opposed and were voted for unanimously in a meeting on the eve of the election by the raising of hands.

Edward Stone was appointed constable. “A good efficient man” was appointed by President Baird to be constable, similar to a priesthood calling, and he served without pay. All this changed, of course, after the coming of the railroad. [40c]

Justice of the Peace Robert E. Baird

Constable Edward Stone

2nd Street was the heart of the new Lynne Precinct with farmhouses on either side of the street fronting farms that extended 20 acres north or south to the outer boundaries of the precinct on today’s North Street and 7th Street. The precinct included a scope of country that was about a mile wide or equal to ten blocks north to south and about three miles wide east to west.[40d]

In the 1860s there were a few small co-operative stores in Ogden, but the people were still largely self sufficient, providing for their own needs. It was a special event when a family acquired a commodity like a clock, a rug or an organ. Before the railroad these exclusive luxuries came to the territory in wagons and sold at a high price.

In the 1860, before the business development at Five Points, there was a little “business hub” on 2nd Street in the old fort that included the school, the post office, Sam Gates’ molasses mill, and Ed Stone’s in-home produce store and later photo gallery. In 1866 William Hutchens established a small saw-mill near the old Bingham School.

Frederick Andrus Miller 1838-1922

Farming flourished in Lynne during the 1860s. Good crops were gathered in this decade, all kinds of produce was in good demand and at high prices in Montana where Montana North mining interests developed. Gold diggings yielded the miners very profitable returns, opening up good markets for all kinds of provisions for the people in northern Utah. Wheat at different periods ranged from $4 to $8 per bushel and flour from $12 to $16 per sack. In the summer of 1864 Frederick A. Miller went with H. V. Shurtliff to Virginia City in Montana with a train of wagons loaded with flour, butter and other articles to sell to the miners.

In the fall and winter of the same year, Miller herded cattle and horses on the Promontory Mountain for the people of Weber County. This was the first herd that had ever been taken there, and it made a fine winter range. The animals came out fat in the spring when he delivered them to their owners.[41]

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3RD SCHOOLHOUSE – the ADOBE LYNNE SCHOOL, 1867

In 1867 the people knew that the future railroad tracks would replace Mill Creek Lane, so the Mill Creek school house was no longer in a suitable location. A new school was built on 2nd Street back at the site of the old Bingham schoolhouse. It was much larger than the Mill Creek school and was made of adobe, located a half-mile west of Five Points on today’s NE corner of 2nd and Lynne School Lane. It was built by taxation and served for school, church and all public purposes. This improved building was named Lynne School.“It was an adobe school with one big room. The hats and coats were hung on the walls. It didn’t have a fireplace but a tall iron stove.The room was plastered and whitewashed and had a shingle roof.” The school was the hub of activity for the settlement, and many houses were clustered near by. Mary Maxham built a stylish house next to the school at today’s214 W. 2ndfor her convenience of attending socials and church meetings.[42](Some accounts say that the school was built in 1866)

1867 adobe Lynne School.

Sam Gates’ unmarried daughter, Nancy Jane, was seventeen in July 1868 when she started“keeping school” in the subscription school on 2nd Street with 34 scholars in the “Lynne 10 District”. On September 22, 1868, she recorded in her journal:

“… Went to school, the wind blew a perfect hurricane from the east and the windows of the schoolhouse were all open and every scholar had had a cold, and the wind blew their book leaves back and forth and that made them so cross, and I must admit that I was cross too. I went and saw brother Taft who was one of the Trustees of the school and he said the Schoolhouse ought to be fixed, (and I knew that without his telling me) but they had nothing to fix it with. After school I went to Sister Hutchens and engaged 26 lbs rolls to spin went home and open 2 skeins.

Got up Wednesday morning and spun 1 ½ skeins yarn, went to school, it was the 23rd day of Sept. and rather cold but warmer than the 22, the wind having gone down with the sun the night before. Bros. Taft and Fields visited the school in the forenoon, and said they were satisfied with the proceedings of the school; they praised the Geography class and encouraged them to continue to learn as fast as possible telling them what a blessing it was to understand geography. They made fair promises to have the schoolhouse finished. When school was dismissed for noon they went home promising to come again in a short time and bring the rest of the Trustees with them, and also the President. I went home ate my dinner returned a 1 o’clock p.m. and taught school as usual. Dismissed the school at 4 p.m. went home spent the evening pleasantly…”

Many of her pleasant evenings after school were spent in activities such as visiting with friends, an evening stroll, a peach paring at Mehitable Bingham’s, horse back riding, spinning, and journal writing. She began keeping a journal in September 1868 after reading“a little paper in the Juvenile Instructor edited by George Q. Cannon”. She quit teaching in November and enrolled herself in a ladies boarding school in Ogden to further her own education. Her school mistress there was Olie Wideborg.[42]

DANCES in the SCHOOLHOUSE and HUSKING BEES

Night dances were held weekly in the schoolhouse for the unmarried and sometimes twice a week. Sometimes a number of young bucks would come to the singles’ dances, but never squaws. The dances always ended at dawn.[43]

The young children, eight and nine year olds, had little dances at the school on Saturday afternoons. Someone would fiddle for them and they would dance until the sun went down. A little girl was always escorted to the dance by a little boy; the little boys always took one or more little girls, and these arrangements were made by the parents. After the girls and boys were 12 years old they could go to the night dances and select their own “date”. But in order to escort a girl to a night dance, the boy had ask the girl’s mother for permission. Then the mother told her daughter who was coming to pick her up for the dance.[44]

Monthly dances were held for the married.“On that evening some of the young ladies would take care of the babies, and some of the young men would take charge of the fire or other duties; the married people danced and the young people were expected to just tend the babies and help them with the lunch at midnight.”

Old pioneers danced the English dances like the minuet, especially William Stone of England, Robert E. Baird of Ireland and an old English couple living in the Hutchen’s tent.Younger folks like to step dance.” Willard Bingham would start to step dance – others would join him until there would be a floor full of dancers. Not many would stay until the end because Turkey in the Straw goes pretty fast.”

Waltzing and quadrilling were also popular.[45]

HUSKING BEE

William Hutchens 1828-1885

In the fall a husking-bee might be held at a farmer’s house. One year William Hutchens raised 20 acres of corn and held a husking-bee at his house.

“The married people would come dressed in their everyday clothing, and they would husk corn until they got tired.. Very often someone (unmarried) found a red ear of corn, and the one who found it ran around the circle with someone of the opposite sex in pursuit. If the one who had husked the red ear was caught before he or she was able to circle back to the starting point, the two kissed. Mary thought the unmarried red-corn finders never tried to run very fast, and someone was always getting caught. Many times when a red ear was found, there was so much foolishness and play (among the young unmarried ones) that it would be fifteen or twenty minutes before they settled back down to husking corn…

Eliza Hutchens 1837-1905

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When the work was finished Eliza served fried cakes, and everyone had a lot to eat. After they finished eating, they danced in the dooryard to the music of fiddle players. Everyone talked and sang and had a good time until daylight. Afterwards, it always took William two or three days to put away the ears of corn that had been husked and tie up the corn fodder for winter use.“[46]

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RELIEF SOCIETY 1868

On April 23, 1868, Chauncey W. West organized a combined Female Relief Society for Marriott and Lynne (See History of the Lynne Ward for details)

EXPANDING THE COMMUNITY on EAST SIDE: Miller, Christofferson, Smuin, Harrop

Frederick Andrus Miller 1838-1922

In 1868 Frederick A. Miller acquired 20 acres of land on the east side of Lynne Ward (5th Street east of Washington Blvd.) and moved to his own place with his mother and grandmother. There was a log house with two rooms on the farm. The land was run down and had to be manured before good crops were raised upon it, which kept him busy for a few years.[47]

Brigham Young sent Rasmus Christofferson of Denmark to Lynne and gave him the land for valiant leadership in the Black Hawk war; his land was located at today’s survey from 2nd to 3rd Street and between Washington Blvd. and Adams Ave. There was no water available here, and Rasmus supervised the construction of the Christofferson Ditch in 1868 to irrigate the the east side of Lynne District. His ditch was known as the Christofferson Ditch is now called the Upper Lynne.

The construction of this ditch opened up the east side of Lynne for settlement in 1868 just as the Bingham Fort Ditch (now called the Lower Lynne) opened up the west side of Five Points in 1851.Christofferson served as watermaster of his new ditch for thirteen years. In 1873 the shareholders of the Christofferson Ditch combined with the “Old Irrigation Company of Lynne”, aka the Bingham Fort Ditch shareholders, to regulate together the ditches and business affairs of both ditches. Together these two ditches irrigated 881 acres of land in the Lynne Community.[47c]

George Smuin 1844-1913

George Smuin and his new bride, Eliza Gaisford, settled in the expanding Lynne Community in 1869 and ate onions and potatoes the first year to get by. George was grateful to his family who had enabled him to emigrate from England in 1864 and could not forget their sacrifice. He had worked hard since his arrival to save for their passage. He and his bride continued to work hard and live frugally. George had compassion for other immigrants and went back several times as a teamster to help them finish their journey across the plains on the ox train.

Concerning their sending money to England, Eliza G. Smuin recorded, “This put us back a number of years because we had to make a great sacrifice, but I knew we were blessed for so doing. We worked faithfully to gather and soon had a good home.”

George Smuin secured land on the east side of Lynne, extending from today’s address of 4th Street to 5th Street between Adams Ave. and east to the hill. This property was next to F. A. Miller’s farm. With the new Christofferson ditch, the east side of Lynne now had an appeal to farmers.[47d]

Joseph Harrop 1828-1900

Joseph Harrop and family came from England and gathered to Lynne in 1862 to began a freighting business, hauling Utah flour and produce to mine workers in Montana. By freighting he earned the money to purchase the land on the east side of Main Street between 4th and 5th Street next to Miller and Smuin.

Harrop St. named for Joseph Harrop family who owned the land between 4th and 5th Sts. on Washington Blvd.

[1]Andrew Jensen, Slaterville Ward History, manuscript, 1893, p. 1; Andrew Jensen, History of the Lynne Ward, manuscript,1893, p. 1, 2 – *conflicting dates of 1849 and 1850 are both reported for the date of Esith (Asa) Rice’s farm and Charles Burk is recorded as arriving in 1849; Andrew Jensen, newspaper, Day By Day With The Utah Pioneers 1847; Annie Jones Maw, Historical Information of the Early Ogden, manuscript, in possession of Joyce B. Maw, Ogden Ut.; Record of the Farming Lands, North Ogden Plat Lemon Survey Made Oct. 1850, Drawer 56l, Family History Library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Ogden Utah; Daughters of Utah Pioneers plaque #279, 1963, at 133 Childs Ave., Ogden, Utah; Sketch by David Moore, Written from Records and Memory, manuscript, p. VI; Joyce B. Maw, Ogden Pioneer Forts and the People Who Lived There, 2004, p. 116; Ogden City, A Bulletin of Community News, March 2008, p. 2; Deseret News, What life was like for the Mormon pioneers after entering the Salt Lake Valley, by Ben Tullis.

Pleasant Green Taylor of Harrisville described the Indian trouble of 1853 and 1854 as follows in his autobiography. He used the words “arrest” and “guard” in his description of the Indians in the fort. These words are more harsh than the words of James S. Brown (above) and Isaac Newton Goodale (below):“1853 – During this season attended to my farm and raised a good crop. In July on account of the hostility of the Indians Pres. Young called upon us to move to certain points and make forts of safety, accordingly I moved my family to what is known as Binghams Fort. At this place I assisted in building a wall of defense. Some 110 families assembled at this place. This being two miles from my farm. We had to be continually on our guard. I used to take my gun with me when I had need to go to my farm.1854 – This season I also tended my farm and in the winter following was called on to take 8 men and arrest a band of Indians for stealing. We succeeded and brought them to our fort and guarded them during the winter.”

Isaac Newton Goodale recorded the trouble with the Indians in 1854 in these words:Feb. 6, 1854: ..I worked at finding out the value of destruction of property caused by the late Indian difficulties.Sept. 1, 1854 : ½ day was thrashing oats, ½ day was (invited) to a Indian feast. Sept. 3,1854: Sunday. Brigham Young came up to make a treaty with the Indians (and urged them to settle down like the white man) Dec. 1, 1854: This day there was a call for 25 men to go to take a body of Indians which had been killing cattle. We took them and brought them into the Fort and tried to have them live with us. Dec. 3, 1854: Bro. (Wilford) Woodruff preached in the evening (and he brought a letter from Governor Young to the Indians)

[40c] Richard W. Sadler and Richard C. Roberts, A History of Weber County, p. 131; Andrew Jensen, History of the Lynne Ward, p. 5; Karen Stark, Stories From The Collection of the weber County Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum, 2012, p. 29.

[40d] Andrew Jensen, History of the Lynne Ward, p. 1, 5.

[41] Ibid; F. A. Miller, A Brief History of the Life of Frederick Andrus Miller, p.4; Annie Jones Maw (1875-1959), Historical Information of the Early Ogden, manuscript, p. 2.

In January 2019 the Harrisville 8th Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints turned 168 years old. From 1850 to 1863 the North Ward/branch in today’s Five Points had changing boundaries and several names as the settlement north of the Ogden River grew, but by 1863 the branch was known commonly as “Lynne 5th”. The name Lynne prevailed until 1924 when the Lynne Ward was renamed the Ogden 15th Ward, and in 2002 it was renamed the Harrisville 8th Ward.

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1850 DECEMBER NORTH BRANCH BEGAN & BY

1851 JANUARY NORTH WARD WAS ORGANIZED

In March 1849 a few dozen families living in Weber County were organized as the Weber River Ward with Captain James Brown as the bishop. More people arrived, and in December1850 the settlers on the land north of the Ogden River were separated from the Weber River Ward into the North Branch with Erastus Bingham Sr. as the branch president. This branch was six miles square in land, but most of the 50 families in the branch lived at first in Farr’s Fort during the winter of 1850-51.

Brigham Young

The North Branch lasted one month and then became a ward. On January 26, 1851, Brigham Young came and reorganized the Weber River Ward into the Weber Stake of Zion, dividing it into two wards: South Ward (Ogden City) and North Ward (all the farmland north of the Ogden River, six miles square), the Ogden River being the dividing line. Lorin Farr became the new stake president.

Erastus Bingham

Erastus Bingham Sr. became the bishop of the North Ward with Charles Hubbard and Stephen Perry as counselors and Sanford Bingham as the ward clerk. All the North Ward presidency and President Farr were living in Farr’s Fort at this time. In a few months Bishop Bingham would move to today’s 2nd Street.[1]

The next week, on February 6, 1851, Ogden City was incorporated. This made it the third incorporated city west of the Missouri River, the first two being San Francisco and Great Salt Lake City.[2] .

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1851 BISHOP BINGHAM & THE BEGINNING OF FIVE POINTS

1852 BOUNDARIES OF NORTH WARD CHANGED

In the spring of 1851 the Bingham family left Farr’s Fort establishing several farms on 2nd Street, beginning the community that was later named Five Points and forming the school house/meeting place of North Ward on 2nd Street. In 1852 the main water ditch, commenced the year before, was completed by the people under the direction of Isaac Newton Goodale, bringing water from Mill Creek to 2nd Street and then on to Slaterville. This ditch would be known as the Bingham Fort Canal and later as the Lower Lynne Ditch.[3]

Erastus Bingham cabin once located at 317 W. 2nd St. Ogden, now in Pioneer Museum, Lagoon, Farmington, Ut.

Today’s location of Bingham farm on W. 2nd St. Ogden with DUP marker by crosswalk; crosswalk is location of west fort wall crossing 2nd Street. The 2015 red ghost cabin designated the location of one of the Bingham cabins. Photo 2015.

Luman Andros Shurtliff

Luman Shurtleff of Nauvoo, Illinois, was part of the exodus from America, arriving in today’s Harrisville in November 1851, a new member of North Ward; he became the President of the Seventies in Weber County in January 1852. He wrote: “We got into the Salt Lake Valley on September 23, 1851, thankful to the God of Heaven that I and my family were in the valley of the Rocky Mountains- – here, where the Prophet Joseph Smith had said thirteen years before that the Saints would go if the government did not put a stop to the mobbing and the persecution of them…. very thankful that we were far removed from those beings .. [who] had driven me and my family five or six times from all we possessed except what little we could take with us in our flight… ”[4]

In 1852 the boundaries of North Ward were reduced when North Ogden was separated into a branch, leaving today’s Harrisville, Five Points, Slaterville and Marriott in the boundaries of North Ward with 2nd Street at Five Points as the nucleus.[5]

At the end of the year 1852 a log schoolhouse was finished by Brother Goodale, a substantial building for the school, ward meetings and all community dances. It was located a block east of Bishop Bingham’s cabin and was known as the Bingham School.[6]

The Bingham School was the meetinghouse on 2nd Street from 1853-1861; it was located on the NE corner of today’s 2nd St. and Lynne School Lane.

On February 6, 1853, Luman Shurtleff “preached at Binghams Schoolhouse on the necessity of dealing honorably and justly with all and observe the Word of Wisdom in all things… took a view of past events and contrasted them with the present and drawed conclusions of the future showing the probable advancement of the Church for twenty years to come, the glory of the Saints and the appearance of the coming of Christ..”

On May 5, 1853 Brother Shurtleff met in the school “with my quorum and showed the cause of apostasy and exhorted them to be faithful. Several of the brethren spoke and we was edified, rained at night, which was very beneficial to our crops which is all in the ground.”

June 5, 1853 “.. preached on the subject of rebaptism in the forenoon and in the afternoon on the power of the priesthood, showing that a strict obedience of those holding the priesthood would save us in celestial glory..”[7]

On Sunday, July 23, 1853, the citizens of Weber County gave speeches in remembrance of the twenty fourth of July, the day the pioneers entered these valleys. Luman Shurtliff was called on to assist in this celebration by making a speech and giving a toast.

In October of 1853 Luman Shurtleff and his wife Melissa attended conference in Salt Lake City and “had much first rate instruction, enjoyed ourselves as well and returned home on the tenth and found all well. The next Sunday at meeting I was called on to preach and spoke of the necessity of refraining from using profane and unnecessary language and other evils. After meeting I rebaptised a man and his wife and reconfirmed them and preached in the evening. The next Sunday I preached at North Ogden and instructed the people to move into the fort and honor their president by coming to meeting and obeying his council in all things.”

1853-1855 BINGHAM FORT

Due to conflict with the Indians, Brigham Young gave orders on July 31, 1853, to all the settlers of Weber County to “fort up”. Isaac Newton Goodale helped locate Bingham Fort; it straddled 2nd Street and enclosed the school and near-by cabins of the Binghams, Gates, Goodales, and Gardners. Many others “teamed up” their cabins to the fort (dragged them on skids). Luman Shurtliff built two cabins in the fort.[8]

After giving the orders to fort up, Brigham Young returned to Salt Lake City, and two weeks later wrote the following letter concerning the tithing wheat to Bishop Erastus Bingham:

Letter from President Brigham Young to Bishop Erastus Bingham about delivering the tithing wheat of North Ward to SLC, August 1853.

The rich soil and availability of water made the Bingham settlement productive; the wheat crops of Weber County provided much needed grain for Salt Lake City during the first five years of settlement. The first tithing house was located east of Erastus Bingham’s cabin on 2nd St. In 1856 a tithing office was established in Ogden for Weber County.

In September of 1853 while building the fort walls, one of the Goodale’s young sons died. Another son was born in October, lived 11 days and also died. Goodale buried the babies next to each other and wrote in his journal on 14 Oct. 1853:“..These days are deep affliction to me; why it is so I cannot tell. The rest of the day I stayed round about home. I feel that all is right. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. He shall be praised for all His goodness to me.”[8a]

Little Soldier and one of his 4 wives; many Shoshone lived in Bingham Fort during the winter of 1854-55.

In September 1854 Brigham Young came to visit the Indians in Weber County. He distributed presents and urged them to settle down like the white man and cultivate the land so they could have something to eat and feed their families in a self sufficient way. The Indians seemed to feel good about the meeting. But after President Young returned to Salt Lake City, the Indians refused to be instructed by the white man and being short of food, they continued to act like beggars and parasites. It would be 20 more years before Little Soldier and the Shoshoni Indians would desire to become farmers.

In November 1854 necessity forced many Shoshone Indians to join the settlers in their forts due to the Indians’ lack of food. James S. Brown was fluent in Shoshone language and steered the difficult process of disarming the Indians and settling them in the forts (for details about this see chronological history 1854). After this was accomplished he continued teaching and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Indians.[8b]

On Dec 3, 1854, Wilford Woodruff visited and preached to the people in Bingham’s Fort; he reported to the Deseret News that “the fort contained 732 inhabitants who had raised an excellent crop that season”. Isaac Newton Goodale recorded about 600 residents in the fort, the size of a ward today. There is a discrepancy of 130 between these reports; perhaps one report included the Indians and one did not.[9]

James S. Brown

On Dec 5, 1854, James S. Brown commenced a school to teach the Indian language, or rather the Shoshone dialect. Thirty male adults attended, including George W. Hill, who afterwards became the noted Shoshone interpreter in Weber County. The winter passed and the Indians worked successfully with the settlers to earn their food and clothes. James S. Brown continued teaching Indian language to whites and preaching in the Shoshone language to the Indians until spring. When the spring of 1855 arrived, the Shoshones were given back their arms, and they bolted out of the forts of Weber County, very glad to have their guns and resume their nomadic life. Although the Indians received much of the gospel teachings, it would be about twenty more years before the Shoshone Indians as a group would convert to the gospel of Christ and join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[10]

TODAY: Overlay of Bingham’s Fort on current road map of 2nd St.

1855 -1858 PRESIDING ELDERS

By 1855 Bingham Fort had become quite a town and was substantially larger than Ogden Fort. In June 1855 President Brigham Young came and counseled the people of Bingham Fort to keep their farms but to move their houses to Ogden as it was his plan to build up Ogden first. Bishop Bingham heeded this counsel and took up a lot in Ogden but also retained his share of the farm on 2nd Street.

At this time North Ward was reorganized into presiding elders in Marriott, Harrisville and Slaterville/Bingham Fort with traveling Bishop Erastus Bingham still supervising all ecclesiastical matters. Thomas Richardson was made presiding elder of Slaterville and supervisor of 2nd Street. Local elders on 2nd Street were Robert E. Baird, William B. Hutchens and John Laird. Because the geographical area was large, church meetings in the area of Slaterville were held in private homes on the north side of Mill Creek and on the south side of Mill Creek, and on 2nd Street the meetings were held in the Bingham School.[11]

In the fall of 1855 Chauncey W. West arrived in the Bingham Fort settlement having returned from a mission to India. In November 1855 he was appointed “presiding bishop of Weber County”. The collection and management of the tithing of all of the wards of Weber County was consolidated in one office, and Presiding Bishop West was in charge of receiving and distributing it where it was needed. Before the building of regular mercantile stores, the tithing office was the only means of exchange of commodities. Some stores were organized in the 1860s, but people largely provided for their own needs until many retail stores came with the building of the railroad in the late 1860s.[11a]

During the summer of 1855 a cricket plague destroyed almost every vestige of vegetation. This was followed by the most severe winter known to the settlers up to that date. A large number of people remained in Bingham Fort through the winter of 1855-56; this winter was ever after known as “The Hard Winter”. In the spring of 1856 most of the fort population dispersed leaving some permanent homesteaders on 2nd Street on the surveyed farms of 1851.[12]

1856-1857 MORMON REFORMATION

After the dire circumstances of grasshoppers in the summer and the Hard Winter of 1855-56, a major event, known as the Mormon Reformation occurred in the winter of 1856-57. This movement was begun by the forceful preaching of Jedediah Grant, a counselor in the Mormon First Presidency, and was followed up in local areas with speeches and calls to repentance so that the blessings of Heaven might prosper them. Economic conditions were poor, food was scarce and some were disaffected by the harsh frontier life.

Robert E. Baird and Isaac Newton Goodale took a prominent part in carving out the work of Reformation on 2nd Street under the direction of Luman Shurtleff, with a view to get the Saints to repent of their sins, their shortcomings and follies and to live lives of virtue and integrity before the Lord so that his blessing, prosperity, and peace might be more abundantly manifest among the people of Zion. They were designated to query or “catechize” each member with probing questions that underlined church activity and faithfulness. Each person was invited to confess his sins in relation to the question asked and then be rebaptized in a renewal of their covenants. The “catechism” of 27 questions was recorded by Luman Shurtliff:

Luman Andros Shurtliff, 1807-1884

1. Have you committed murder by shedding innocent blood or consenting thereunto?

2. Have you betrayed your brethren or sisters in anything?

3. Have you committed adultery by having any connection with any woman that was not your wife or a man that was not your husband?

4. Have you taken or made use of property not your own without consent of the owner?

5. Have you cut hay where you had no right to or turned your animals into another persons’ grain or field without his knowledge or consent?

6. Have you lied about or maliciously misrepresented any person or thing?

7. Have you borrowed anything that you have not returned or paid for?

8. Have you born false witness against your neighbor?

9. Have you taken the name of Deity in vain?

10. Have you coveted anything not your own?

11. Have you been intoxicated with strong drink?

12. Have you found lost property and not returned it to the owner or used all diligence to do so?

13. Have you branded an animal that you did not know to be your own?

14. Have you taken another’s horse or mule from the range and rode it without the owner’s consent?

15. Have you filled your promises in paying your debts or run into debts without prospects of paying?

16. Have you taken water to irrigate with when it belonged to another person at the time you used it?

17. Do you pay your tithing promptly?

18. Do you teach your family the gospel of salvation?

19. Do you speak against your brethren or against any principle taught us in the Book of Mormon bible book or Doctrine and Covenants Revelations given through Joseph Smith the Prophet and the Presidency of the Church as now organized?

20. Do you pray in your family night and morning and attend to secret prair?

21. Do you wash your boddies and have your family do so as ofton as helth and clenliness requires and circumstances will permit?

22. Do you labor six days and rest or go to the House of Worship on the seventh?

23. Do you and your family attend ward meetings?

24. Do you preside over your household as a servant of God and is your family subject to you?

25. Have you labored diligently and earned faithfully the wages paid you by your employers?

26. Do you oppress the hireling in his wages?

27. Have you taken up and converted any stray animal to your own use or in any manner appropriated one to your benefit without accounting theirfor to the proper authorities?

A little over 200 people in the Bingham Fort District were catechized during January and February of 1857. Early in the spring, the work of Reformation having been taught in the winter, most of the people were re-baptized in Mill Creek. The blessings and economic prosperity that were sought by the people came about by an ironic turn of events over the next two years.[13]

1857-1858 UTAH WAR

On July 24, 1857, on the 10th anniversary of the arrival of the Saints into the valley and during their pioneer day celebration in Big Cottonwood Canyon, messengers came with the alarming news that the U.S. Army was on its way to Utah to put down the alleged Mormon rebellion against the Union. The people were shocked and feared the prospect of again being driven unjustly from their homes as they were in Missouri and Illinois.[14]

Upon hearing the news Erastus Bingham and family left the celebration and returned at once to Ogden. The History of the Lynne Ward recorded: “All the able bodied men were mustered into service in the militia under Chauncey W. West to assist in watching the invading forces ordered by the general government against the Mormons. The U. S. Army had reached Ham’s Fork in the vicinity of Fort Bridger. The determined defensive position taken by our militia and by means of large scouting parties … was to harass, discourage and confuse, and to induce the army to camp for winter in the locality of Fort Bridger… Maj. Jos. Taylor and Capt. W.R.R. Stowell were taken prisoners by their enemies.”

In the fall of 1857 while others were in preparatory military training, or “sword exercises” as Isaac Newton Goodale described it, Frederick A. Miller, age 19, was called to go on a mission to Fort Lemhi in the eastern part of what is now Idaho “to educate the Indians and teach them the Gospel”. He left on October 3rd and arrived there October 27th.[15]

In the spring of 1858, in order to avoid bloodshed, Brigham Young decided to abandon the northern Utah settlements instead of fighting. Should the army manage to enter the Salt Lake Valley, it would find the homes laid waste by fire and the people gone. The army’s victory would be without significance. Most of the people of the people on 2nd Street joined the exodus; their ward history reads:

“The people being in harmony with the general spirit and feeling of the whole church, took up their line of march for the southern country leaving a detail of men to guard the homes and property or to destroy it by the lighted torch in the event of the hostile forces gaining the ascendancy. Never was a people more determined to defend their rights and their religion against a crusade inaugurated by the very power and authority which should have extended protection. Nay more, who should have rendered them aid and sympathy in their undertakings to convert the sterile desert wastes of these mountain regions into cultivated fields and farms and make happy homes for themselves and families, surrounded for neighbors by the hostile savage of the plains, 1000 miles from any other portion of those cultivated and civilized inhabitants.”

Thomas Bingham, Erastus Bingham Jr. and Isaac Newton Goodale were the men left on 2nd Street under the command of Col. David Moore, with “instructions to burn the houses and crops if worst came to worst and the Saints definitely must seek a new homeland.”

Buglers of Johnston’s army 1857-1858

Frederick Andrus Miller 1838-1922

On the 28th of March 1858 Frederick A. Miller left Fort Lemhi, and on the 11th of April he arrived in Ogden and found it a “dreary looking place as the inhabitants had moved from their homes to the southern part of the Territory.” He too went south and found his mother living in Springville.

After months of standoff and evacuation the Mormons and the U. S. government worked out their differences and the “Utah War” was brought to an end. The people of Weber County returned gratefully to their homes. On 2nd Street is was recorded that ” …A fair crop was gathered considering the circumstances, the home guard in charge having performed faithfully their duty toward the people.”

With the end of the Utah War came a new governor, Alfred Cumming, the presence of federal troops, and outsiders bringing money to invest in new businesses. In some ways the “Utah War” was a God-send as the settlers were able to buy cheap the soldier’s discarded clothing, such as coats and suits, and the stationary army purchased supplies from the settlers. All this helped to put more money in circulation. Johnston’s army settled in Camp Floyd in a valley 50 miles SW of Salt Lake City and remained there until 1861.

150 people left the Territory at this time, either because of the harsh economics or dissatisfaction with the faith. While a small number trickled out, large numbers continued to come in. During the 1860s Ogden began to look forward toward rapid growth in commerce and industry. [16]

1858-1863 BRANCH PRESIDENT THOMAS RICHARDSON

After the Utah War was over, on Sept. 10, 1858, Thomas Richardson became the district or “branch” president of the area of Slaterville (or Pioneer Road); 2nd Street (or Bingham Fort Lane) was under this jurisdiction with Robert E. Baird as the presiding elder on 2nd Street and meetings were still held in the Bingham School. Bishop Erastus Bingham was released as the traveling bishop and served now as bishop of Ogden First Ward. [17]

In 1861 the school trustees built a larger log schoolhouse with a rock chimney and fireplace on the SE corner of 2nd Street and Mill Creek Lane one mile west of Five Points (this is today’s intersection of 2nd Street and the railroad tracks). Robert E. Baird was among the trustees who erected the school house and named it the Mill Creek School, located about 300 yards north of Mill Creek. [18]

The Mill Creek School was the meetinghouse for Saints on 2nd Street from 1861-1867; it was located on 2nd St. by today’s railroad tracks.

On Oct. 25, 1863, all of Weber County was organized into one ward but then divided into districts. 2nd Street became the 5th Ecclesiastical District of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with Robert E. Baird as president, Daniel F. Thomas as 1st Counselor and James Field as 2nd Counselor. About this time the assistant Ogden postmaster Walter Thompson named the postal route on 2nd Street “Lynne” after his native town in Scotland. The 5th Ecclesiastical District of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was more commonly known as “Lynne District” or “Lynne 5th”. A journal entry of Nancy Jane Gates read, “Attended church today at Lynne 5th.”.[19]

Robert Erwin Baird, 1817-1875

Robert E. Baird was one of the “adopted sons” of Heber C. Kimball in Nauvoo. He immigrated from Ireland as a young man and married Hannah McCullough in Pennsylvania in 1840. They joined the Mormons and moved to Nauvoo. In 1847 Robert entered the Salt Lake Valley with the first pioneer company driving a wagon for Heber C. Kimball. He settled on Bingham’s Lane and married a second wife, Jane Hadley, in 1856 and a third wife, Mary Hadley, in 1858. His occupation is listed as tailor and farmer in the 1850 and 1860 censuses and as Public Speaker in the 1870 census. His farm was located at today’s address of 2nd St. and 1000 West.[19a]

Log cabin of President Robert E. Baird enclosed in frame house in c. 1940; photo courtesy of Frank Layman.

Location of Robert E. Baird house today; photo 2014.

In 1864 a civil precinct was formally organized and named Lynne. The boundaries of the civil Lynne Precinct were also the boundaries of the ecclesiastical “Lynne 5th”. President Robert E. Baird became the first Justice of the Peace; it was common at this time for the ecclesiastical leader of a settlement and the civil leader to be the same.[20]

Constable Edward Stone

“A good efficient man”, Edward Stone, was appointed by Robert E. Baird to be constable. This appointment was like a priesthood calling, and the constable served without pay.[20a]

Lynne Precinct 1864-1889

1867-1877 ADOBE LYNNE SCHOOL MEETING HOUSE for LYNNE 5TH

Site of Bingham School and then Lynne School

By 1867 the people knew that the railroad tracks would soon come along Mill Creek Lane, so the Mill Creek School was no longer in a suitable location. A new, larger adobe school was built back on the same site as the old Bingham School. The new school had one big room that was plastered and whitewashed and a shingled roof. It didn’t have a fireplace but was heated with a tall iron stove. The cost of the school was paid by taxation, and it was known as Lynne School.

The adobe Lynne School was the meeting house for the Saints from 1867-1877 and was located on NE corner of today’s intersection of 2nd St. and Lynne School Lane.

In 1867 a Sunday School was organized in the Lynne District. Sunday School met in the school in the morning, Sacrament meeting in the evening, and Fast meeting was on the first Thursday morning of each month.[21]

The first session of Sunday School was held May 24, 1867. Fred N. Stone later described the Sunday School organization: “It became a prominent organization with Brother Joseph Harrop as Superintendent. He was a wonderful singer, always on hand at every meeting, walking to and from the meeting house to his home which was situated where Fourth Street now is. He sometimes walked this distance three times a day. Brother Harrop never forgot to remind the boys and girls to shine their shoes, take a bath and go to bed early on Saturday night so as to be on time for Sunday School. A prize consisting of a silver service for Sacrament was won for the best attendance of any Sunday School in the Stake for a year.”[21a]

1868 LYNNE 5TH & MARRIOTT RELIEF SOCIETY

On April 23, 1868, Chauncey W. West organized a combined Female Relief Society for Lynne and Marriottsville. Meetings were held once a week in the homes of various sisters, two meetings in Bingham Fort and two in Marriottsville each month. Mill Creek Lane ran along today’s railroad tracks and connected the two communities; it was noted as a beautiful path to walk on.

Anne Bickington was the first president of the Lynne/Marriott Relief Society.

Ann Bickington was chosen president of the Relief Society, with Nancy Tracy and Hannah Baird counselors, and Nancy Jane Gates as secretary.[22] Eliza R. Snow taught the sisters about the 1842 organization of Relief Society in Nauvoo and explained that their first duties were to help the poor in their wards and to establish committees to have sisters visit each family at least once every month. The society was to help the women physically, mentally and spiritually.

Henry Reeder, Harriet Reeder and Ann Bickington on farm on 12th Street; Harriet and Ann were members of the first Lynne/Marriott Relief Society; photo circa 1900.

Some of the Lynne/Marriott Relief Society sisters were illiterate and some could not read English, so Georgia Marriott organized a successful literacy program. Ellen Knowles Melling Salisbury was among those who learned to read age 50, and she later became a teacher in the Relief Society.

Fred N. Stone described the first Relief Society: “The sisters worked shoulder to shoulder with the brethren in taking care of the sick and needy, and although money was very scarce, they managed to raise $100 to help emigrate some poor person from a foreign country. They also learned to braid straw and make hats for the brethren, their children and themselves. They carded and spun the wool for their own clothes, also made candles for light; so we see they were kept very busy, but ever found time to help one another in any capacity. One among them was Sister Anna Cardon, who was a physician and surgeon and was called upon at all hours of the day or night in all kinds of weather to go to the assistance of the sick all over the branch, and she often had to ride horse back as the roads were impassable to a vehicle.“[22a]

On September 28, 1868 Nancy Jane Gates recorded a visit from her Female Teachers in her journal: .. “I went to school as usual had only 18 scholars. At noon I went home prepared dinner. The Female Teachers called and paid me a visit. I donated a half yard calico and 2 skeins black cotton thread. …”

In 1871 Caroline Peterson Harrop served as a Norwegian interpreter for Relief Society. Many non-English speaking Scandinavian families were moving into the east side of Lynne and joining the Lynne 5th.[23]

In 1875 Eliza R. Snow visited Ogden encouraging the sisters to establish home factories. The Relief Society sisters of Lynne and Marriott joined the Utah silk project and began nurturing silkworms. On West 12th Street a large lot was planted in Mulberry trees to grow leaves to feed the silkworms. The trees and worms were imported from Italy and France.

Nancy Naomi Alexander Tracy

Nancy Tracy was part of this project, and she placed a few worms (larvae) in an east room in her house at 701 W 12th Street and soon had thousands of them. They ate continuously for 6 weeks and made much noise. They would strip a branch of leaves in no time. Then each larvae enclosed himself into a cocoon; a cocoon was made of a thread of raw silk produced by the salivary glands and ranged from 1,000 to 3,000 feet long. The home silk industry did produce silk cloth, but the project was unsuccessful financially so it was of short duration, but it was regarded as a noble effort of pioneer people to develop themselves this fine kind of cloth. However, over the next two decades there would continue to be some silk production by the women of Weber County.[24]

1869 RAILROAD

The “great highway” (railroad) across the nation met at Corinne May 10th, 1869, and brought dramatic change to the economic, social and cultural influence in Utah. The railroad non-Mormons had their dances, and the Mormons had theirs. Young Mormons everywhere were counseled not to attend railroad dances. Moroni Stone was excommunicated from the Lynne 5th for attending railroad dances and racing the train on horseback with a group of rowdy friends.

The People’s Party was organized, and Mormons were counseled to vote for the church selected candidates of the People’s Party. Non Mormons, or Gentiles, supported the candidates of the Liberal Party. Unlike his Mormon neighbors on 2nd Street, Moroni Stone became an active member of the Liberal Party.

In the fall of 1869 President Robert E. Baird organized a young men’s Lyceum for Mutual Improvement in Lynne District in harmony with Brigham Young’s call for “Retrenchment”. It brought the young men together for evening reading and general mental culture and to gain experience in public speaking.[25]

Gentile stores were noted for Mormon price gorging. The Cooperative Mercantile Co. was formed at Five Points in 1869, capitol subscribed and W. T. Read was appointed superintendent and salesman. Relief Society sisters were encouraged to volunteer time serving at the Mormon cooperative store.[26]

1870 JOSEPHITE MISSIONARY David Hyrum Smith

In 1870 Josephite missionaries from the States arrived in Ogden by train, and in the course of their proselyting David Smith, one of the sons of Joseph Smith, visited and preached on 2nd Street. The history of the Lynne Ward states:“The appearance of such a person in this locality naturally excited curiosity amongst a great many, owing to the relationship existing between this man and the recognized head and founder of the faith under the direction and inspiration of the Almighty…”

David Smith and the Josephites came in four or five wagons together, and that in itself was unusual, arousing the neighborhood people to come to the roadway and watch the wagons pass. Brother Robert Baird had three wives and was president of the Lynne District; he challenged David Smith to a debate in the Lynne schoolhouse, but Mr. Smith declined knowing that Brother Baird would attack the veracity of his mother.[27]

David Hyrum Smith declined the debate with Robert E. Baird.

The Josephites continued west down the road and held a meeting in the Slaterville schoolhouse. Few accepted the doctrine of the Josephites, but some Mormons who were dissatisfied with polygamy entered into sympathy with them. In 1872 some who were still sympathetic with the Josephites left their farms in Slaterville and left Utah and returned to the States.[28]

The railroad brought other religious groups to Five Points, and many of these non Mormons came with the intent of converting “Mormon children and adults away from the error of their ways and their current religious practices, particularly plural marriage.”[29]

1870 BAPTISM OF JOHN HUTCHENS

“John’s mother [Eliza Hutchens] had gone to conference in Salt Lake City, but had left word that on fast day, which was the first Thursday in the month, Mary [age 13] was to take John and have him baptized. Father [William Hutchens] stayed with the [other] children in their house at 152 W 2nd St. When Thursday came, Mary took John to be baptized in the canal, and then, after she had changed his wet clothing, she took him into the schoolhouse to be confirmed, at the Thursday morning fast meeting which followed the baptism.” He was baptized in the Lynne 5th District on June 2, 1870.[30]

Bingham Fort Canal, today’s lower Lynne Ditch; photo 2010.

Brother and Sister Hutchens were faithful members of the Church, yet neither was present at the baptism, and his father did not participate in the ordinances, a sharp contrast to present customs.

1874 LYNNE UNITED ORDER

Luman Shurtliff wrote: “May 2, 1874 – I was at Ogden at a two day meeting. The United order or Order of Enoch was taught and all invited to give in their names who wished to join that body of united saints… I had prayed for many years that the order had in Zion in the days of Enoch would take place in my life that I might see the order and enjoy the blessings thereof. The next day the Weber Stake was organized…”(p. 120)

After the two day meeting in Ogden a branch of the United Order was organized in Lynne as follows: Robert E. Baird president, John Folker vice president, Nathan Porter, secretary. Thomas Wilson was assistant secretary, Frederick A. Miller, treasurer, Daniel F. Thomas, William B. Hutchens, and Rasmus Christofferson directors. Daniel F. Thomas was appointed as a director on the central board to represent Lynne.

An interesting enterprise connected with the United Order was the organization of a co-operative farm in 1875. Several of the brethren bought a farm and raised 100 acres of broom corn for the Scoville Broom Factory. The shares were given according to the amount of labor and cash each member put into it, and the profits were to be received accordingly. They cultivated, harvested, cured and delivered the brush fiber according to a co-operative participation plan.

Scoville Broom Factory, Ogden, Utah.

Horatio Bardwell Scoville was called by Brigham Young to go east and study the broom manufacturing business. After two years of study and apprenticeship, he returned to Ogden and set up business at 2441 Grant Ave., Ogden. The specially grown broom corn was planted and machinery purchased. The first Utah factory-made brooms were turned out on Oct. 18, 1875. The brooms manufactured this year were sold directly to families from 50 cents to $1.30 each. [31]

1875 DEATH OF PRESIDENT BAIRD

On the 24th of August 1875 President Robert E. Baird died after an illness of nearly 10 years. Brother Baird was a good faithful and useful man, very much respected by his little flock and his death was lamented by all who felt the privilege of his acquaintance or who listened to this counsel and instructions. On the 14th day of October Daniel F. Thomas was appointed as president of the Lynne 5th.[32]

LOOKING BACK THIRTY PLUS YEARS…

Luman Shurtliff, age 68: 1875 Dec 25th – this day is called Christmas by believers in Jesus Christ. This day I and my wife Melissa rode to Plain City to my son Lewis’ and I gave him and his wife their patriarchal blessings. Thirty years ago this day I and my wife Altamira received our endowments in the temple which we helped build in Nauvoo, now 1400 miles east of this place…. (p.121)

Luman Shurtliff, age 69: 1876 July 4 – .. the fourth of July 1838 I was present and assisted in the celebration and laying of the corner stones of the temple at Far West Caldwell County Mo. In this city I was taken a prisoner by order of a mobocratic governor called L W Boggs and in the month of Feb compelled to leave the state of Missouri and flee to Illinois leaving a farm of fifty acres of rich land in possession of the mob and settled in Lyma Adam County Illinois. Since that [time] I have traveled in many of the states and territories preaching the Gospel of the Son of God and trying to do good among the children of men. Having been driven six times from all that was dear on earth (except what little I could take with me in my flight) and now [as an] exile in the valleys of the Rocky Mountains, I find my ardor somewhat cooled in celebrating the birthday of a nation which will not allow me the rites of a common citizen, that is to worship God & keep his commandments (p. 122… grammatical and spelling corrections inserted).

1877 LYNNE WARD ORGANIZED – BISHOP DANIEL F. THOMAS

On May 28, 1877, Lynne 5th District was organized as a ward with Daniel F. Thomas as bishop and William B. Hutchens and R. Christofferson as counselors. The ward included a territory about four miles long and a mile wide.

BOUNDARIES OF THE LYNNE WARD 1877-1908

On the 29th of May a meeting was called by Apostles F. D. Richards and Erastus Snow. There was also present the presidency of the Weber Stake, President D. H. Perry, L. J. Harrop and D. F. Middleton. The object of the meeting was to carry out the instructions of the presidency of the church in a thorough organization of the orders of the priesthood. On the 29th of September the different grades of the lesser priesthood were organized by President Perry and counselors, after ordaining several of the young men of the ward to offices of the lesser quorums of priesthood.”[33]

Fred N. Stone: ” Bishop Thomas lived at the western end of the ward (2nd St. and 1000 West). There were also about nine or ten other families living in that locality. Going eastward where the ward was situated was a stretch of marshy sloughy land and in wet weather the mud and water reached all most to the hubs of the wagon, which was their means of transportation. In dry weather the chuck holes and dust made going precarious, but nothing daunted those sturdy saints. Bishop Thomas with his faithful wife and a load of sons and daughters were always at meeting on time, and with his genial smile and hearty hand-shake, he made everybody welcome.”[33a]

Bishop Daniel F. Thomas

Log storage shed of Daniel F. Thomas was in Utah General Depot Museum; it was originally located on his farm on 2nd St. and 1000 West.

1877 BRICK LYNNE SCHOOL MEETING HOUSE

Site of 2nd Lynne School

In the fall of 1877 a new brick school house was completed, a big structure of 24 x 40 feet, and it was furnished with first class desks. On the 9th of December it was dedicated. Prayer was offered by counselor S. J. Harrop, speeches were made congratulating the Saints on the energy and faith manifest by this substantial edifice, it being a credit to them and an evidence of the interest they feel in the education of their children, as well as having a desirable and comfortable house in which to assemble for worship and for general instruction and improvement.

The speeches on this occasion were Apostle F. D. Richards, Stake President D. H. Perry, Elders C. F. Middleton, F. S. Richards, L. F. Monk, – -Moench and David N. Stewart. The building was erected at a cost if about $2,300, furniture $300, total $2,600. When the brick school was completed, the old adobe school was torn down. [34]

The brick Lynne School was meeting house on 2nd Street from 1877-1890; it was later remodeled into the house pictured above; photo courtesy Maxine Stone Brown, c. 1930.

A few weeks after the dedication of the new schoolhouse, the Lynne Ward held a Christmas party where one of the first Christmas trees of the era was presented. It was many years later before people began having Christmas trees in their homes. Sarah Stone, age 5, attended and later wrote:

Sarah Stone, age 16, c. 1888.

“I can remember this truly was a happy Christmas for it was the first time I ever saw a Christmas Tree. I remember this beautiful tree in the school house-meeting house (for it was both). We with the neighbors went to the Lynne Ward to see this Christmas Tree and to hear the program where there was singing. After the program there was the Christmas meal and after that there was the Christmas dance. Most of the people danced and danced – some into the next morning. The children were put to bed on blankets…”[34a]

1878 LYNNE RELIEF SOCIETY

On the 5th of May 1878 the Relief Society was separated from the Mariottsville Settlement, and a separate organization of the Lynne Ward Relief Society was effected with the following officers: Mary Baird, President; Suzanah Empey and Stova Thomas, counselors; Amelda Hutchens Crowley, secretary; Bodell Christofferson, treasurer. After a few years Sister Baird, being quite aged, resigned and Sister Stova Thomas was made president and continued in that position until the stake was divided in 1908.[34b]

1878-1881 LYNNE WARD REPORT

During the past 4 years up to the present little change has occurred in the settlement, it being ecclesiastically continued under the direction of the same officers. Good day Sabbath schools have been in continuous sessions under able instructors. The settlers have had good fruit seasons and gathered extensively from their orchards and farms. While the local interests have been represented in the Ogden City Council by Alderman Wm. B. Hutchens, the settlement generally has enjoyed a time of peace and prosperity.

A Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association was organized in the Lynne Ward March 27, 1879, with Sister Jane Taylor Baird as president.

A Primary Association was organized in the Lynne Ward June 30, 1880 with Mrs. Janet Perry as president, Martha Harrop and Geneva Miller counselors.[34c]

In 1880 diphtheria prevailed in the settlement, resulting in the death of six children with much affliction in many families. A collection was made for the poor of the ward with means thus obtained: 3 cows, and 11 sheep were purchased. The profits arising from this stock constituted a fund for a little revenue to aid the poor.

Jens Franzen and Rasmus Christofferson were called on missions to Scandanavia in 1881.[35]

Tithing house for the Lynne Ward in the 1880s was on counselor William Hutchens’ property; today at 196 2nd St.; photo 2000.

PRES. JOHN TAYLOR, JOHN SMITH & PATRIARICHIAL BLESSINGS

William B. Hutchens served as first counselor to Bishop Daniel Thomas of the Lynne Ward from 1876-1885. Since the Hutchens home at 152 W. 2nd Street was next to the schoolhouse which served as the church, the visiting authorities of the church were entertained in the attractive Hutchens home. President John Taylor, third president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was one of those who visited here. John Smith, the son of Hyrum Smith, was the second patriarch of the church; he stayed at the Hutchens home several times giving patriarchal blessings to the members of the community. This home is still standing in 2018.[35a]

Home of William B. Hutchens/ Vic Reno in about 1930; built in 1868.

TODAY: 152 West 2nd Street; photo 2012.

1882 EDMUNDS ACT

In 1882 the Edmunds Act, also known as the Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act of 1882, was passed in the congress of the United States declaring polygamy a felony. The Lynne Ward was duly incorporated in order to hold the legal title to ward property….. Peter Sherner left on a mission to Minnesota and also served part time in Denmark ……………

Erastus Bingham

Erastus Bingham, first bishop of the ward, stalwart pioneer and leader among men, died in his cabin on the Bingham Farm in May 1882, the same year that the Edmunds Act was passed. His second wife, whom every one knew as Aunt Hitty, her name being Mahitable (Sawyer Hall), now a widow, was kept very busy as a midwife. The cheese she made was known as the best to be had. [36]

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1883 DISSENTION

In 1883 quite a spiritual dissention existed in the ward, arising largely from the influence exercised by Wm. Laird who had been excommunicated from the church some time previously. Quite a number of the brethren in the ward under his influence began fault finding and criticizing the policy of the church. This skepticism on doctrinal subject led to the excommunication of six male members.[37]

1885 LYNNE TEACHERS QUORUM

Several new stores were built at Five Points in answer to petitions in 1884.

In 1885 Counselor William B. Hutchens died Oct. 18 of pneumonia. He had been faithful and energetic church worker identified with all the business and building of the ward from the first settlement in the early 1850s.

A teachers quorum was organized at Lynne December 20, 1885 by Charles F. Middleton of the Weber Stake presidency. On December 7, 1885 George Smuin was ordained a high priest and set apart as a first counselor to Bishop Thomas by Stake President Lewis W. Shurtliff.

This year a saloon was opened in Lynne. Former enterprise of that kind had hitherto failed for the lack of capitol but now since the gentile population was increasing this saloon enterprise became quite a success.[38]

Squire Green Crowley

Fred N. Stone recalled: “In the way of amusement in the ward there was always plenty of entertainment to be thought of, as all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. There was a dancing hall owned by Brother Squire Green Crowley, the school teacher. The hall was built were the Corlis property now is (the NE corner of Childs and 2nd St.). A home dramatics club was organized and credited with outstanding plays. Also each association in the ward sponsored a program. There were carpet rag bees, fruit cutting bees and numerous other activities, each calling for a supper and a dance. [38a]

1886-1887 LYNNE WARD REPORT

In 1886 Bishop Daniel Francis Thomas was called on a mission to Great Britian and Myrtillo Shaw on a mission to the United States. Bishop Thomas was set apart Jan. 30th 1886 and returned in 1887. Elder Shaw was set apart Jan 24th, 1886, and returned about six months later owing to ill health.

At a special meeting held September 11, 1887, in which the 70s residing in Marriott, Lynne and Mount Fort wards were organized as the 98th Quorum of 70.[39]

1888-1889 POLYGAMY & PRISON

In the first district Court of Ogden, May 31, 1888, Bishop Daniel F. Thomas was sentenced by Judge Henderson to 3 months in prison in the Utah Penitentiary, to pay a fine of $300 having been convicted of so-called unlawful co-habitation. The bishop felt very much depressed in spirit over his incarceration and his health became much impaired by his confinement (for more stories about local polygamy see 317 W. 2nd St.).

Daniel F. Thomas served similar to these prisoners for polygamy.

In Lynne a crew of men tore down the remaining portions of the old Bingham Fort walls that extended in a three block area on both sides of 2nd Street.

In 1889 a number of old settlers died in 1889 at Lynne, faithful and true to the last. . William Perry became president of the teachers quorum. The names of the roads in Ogden and Lynne were changed by the Ogden mayor in order to erase the Mormon names of streets. Bingham’s Lane was not called 2nd Street.[40]

Ellen K. M. Salisbury

In 1889 a new Latter-day Saints Psalmody was published for the Church. Ward member Ellen Knowles Melling Salisbury, age 69, and John Jacques teamed together to combine his poem and her music into the song known today as “Oh Say, What Is Truth“. They worked on their hymn at Ellen’s residence at 386 W. 2nd St.[40a]

1890 BISHOP GEORGE SMUIN

“Bishop Daniel F. Thomas died suddenly at Lynne on Wednesday July 30, 1890, while working in the field about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. He was overcome by the heat and died a few minutes afterwards. He had been complaining a little for some time. Daniel Francis Thomas, bishop of Lynne Ward, was born Ap. 13, 1826 at Pennyall in the parish of Llangfyhandclararth, Camarthenshire, S. Wales.”

At a ward conference held in Lynne on Oct. 26, 1890, attended by the Weber Stake Presidency, George Smuin was sustained as the new bishop of the Lynne Ward with Rasmus Christofferson as his 1st counselor and Walter W. Crane as his 2nd counselor. Bishop Smuin was the first bishop to reside on the east side Lynne; all previous bishops or branch presidents lived on the west side of Lynne where the pioneer settlement began. Brother Christofferson also lived on the east side and Brother Crane on the west side. We will see that Bishop Smuin will serve for the next 18 years as bishop, guiding the ward through the manifesto, statehood, the end of the People’s Party, and the expanding growth on the east side of Lynne until the east side becomes so large that it is separated from the Lynne Ward.

Walter W. Crane, the new second counselor, was trying to escape incarceration for polygamy and was set apart for a mission to Great Britian, Oct. 25, 1890. Bishop Smuin’s second counselor was on a mission for two years before returning and assuming his responsibilities as second counselor.[41]

1890-1892 MANIFESTO & CROWLEY HALL

The “1890 Manifesto” (also known as the “Woodruff Manifesto” or the “Anti-polygamy Manifesto”) was a statement which officially advised against any future plural marriage in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Issued by church president Wilford Woodruff in September 1890, the Manifesto was a response to mounting anti-polygamy pressure from the United States Congress which by 1890 had disincorporated the church, escheated its assets to the U. S. Federal government, and imprisoned many prominent polygamist Mormons. Upon its issuance, the LDS Church in conference accepted Woodruff’s Manifesto as “authoritative and binding”.[42]

Squire Green Crowley

In this same year Ogden City annexed Five Points and took over the management of Lynne School. The Mormons were no longer allowed to use the school for meetings so they rented the Crowley Hall on Harrisville Road from Squire Green Crowley. The ecclesiastical board set to work and improved the old Crowley Hall, built an addition to the building, painted it, furnished it with new seats and other improvements, making it very comfortable for Sabbath School students as well as for general meetings at a cost of $1900. A new organ was also purchased for the house.

YESTERDAY: Crowley Hall at 37 Harrisville Road looked like this photo of the Mound Fort Ward which reportedly was built the same way.

Fred N. Stone described happy hours in the meetinghouse on Harrisville Road: Sister Thomas, who was still president of Relief Society, and her counselor, Eliza Smuin, and Bishop Smuin were all very happy when entertaining. They came to the meetinghouse with baskets, wash tubs, and boxes of food, and all members of the ward in general brought food, and banquets were freely enjoyed by all.

Crowley Hall converted to Lynne Ward Meetinghouse and was used from 1890- 1914; in 1915 this hall was used for scouting and was called “The Old Scouts’ Hall”.

In 1890 and 1891 the land boom struck Ogden and the real estate in Lynne went up to extraordinary high figures. Some of the settlers sold at Five Points and vacated in favor of business enterprises. The population of the district largely increased. Stores, saloons, real estate agencies etc. were established. Also a Methodist Church was built.[42a]

photo by James H. Crockwell, 1892.

1891-1892 POLITICAL AGITATION IN LYNNE WARD

The Mormon People’s Party was dissolved in 1891, and Mormons were no longer counseled to vote for the church selected candidates of the People’s party. There was considerable excitement in the latter part of 1891 over the end of the People’s party and division of Mormon church members into party lines of choice, although Bishop Smuin strove to direct equal numbers into both parties.

In 1892 the LDS Democrats and Republicans competed against the Liberal candidates. Political agitation reached fever heat in the Lynne Community. Some of the Mormon brethren were carried away in their zeal over political questions against those of their faith who did not share their political views.

In 1892 a special census was taken of the Lynne Community of Ogden showing 931 souls altogether and mostly farmers. “Of the population 570 (or 107 families) were Mormons and 386 souls (or 78 families) gentiles. There were 159 boys and 152 girls school age.” The census shows the continuing distinction between Mormons and gentiles that would carry on for decades even after the polygamy animosity faded.[43]

This is a book published in 1891 used first by the Lynne Sunday School and later by the Lynne Primary; book compliment of Brenda Zehnpfenning.

1893-1894 CHURCH HISTORIAN’S VISIT to LYNNE WARD AND QUARTERLY CONFERENCE

In 1893 LDS Church Historian Andrew Jensen visited Lynne Ward in the interest of church history. He addressed the public congregation in the Lynne Meeting hall the evening of Jan 25, 1893, and the next day met with the old settlers to obtain information form the following persons: Bishop George Smuin, and counselors Rasmus Christofferson and Walter W. Crane, Joseph Stanford, Alexander Brown, Jesse Brown, James Field, Peter L. Sherner and Joseph Gart.

As early as 1894 the New West Education Society erected a very commodious schoolhouse at Five Points, claimed to be nonsectarian; it had been liberally patronized by gentiles and apostates and a very few Mormon families. At this time (1894) there were at Five Points three stores selling merchandise, one drug store, two shoe stores, two tailoring establishments, three blacksmith shops, one butcher shop, one skating rink, several or three saloons and a number of real estate offices, doctors, lawyers, etc.[44]

On the 13th Jan. 1894 I attended quarterly conference. Brigham Young Jr. spoke. He prophesied that the Indians would take charge of the shipping at New York of the incoming and outgoing vessels. In the afternoon, John W. Taylor spoke about having our new tabernacle built. He said for the young sisters to go to and pack water to mix the lime and he would come and mix it for them. He said Enoch walked with the Lord and He commanded him to talk with the people and the people listened to him.

I attended meeting on the 14th of Jan. 1894. Brother F. D. Richards spoke at length on keeping a diary and about getting our genealogy. In the afternoon Brigham Young Jr. spoke on paying tithing, that the Lord had said he had promised to protect us (if we payed our tithing). John W. Taylor spoke on lack of confidence. He said we should strive to pursue a course in our lives to establish confidence in each other, as confidence seemed almost gone from the world. He also said wherein men forsook their families God would forsake them and spoke on people being honest with each other.[45]

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c. 1894 24th OF JULY LYNNE WARD

Fred N. Stone wrote: “Another feature of amusement was a grove of poplar trees owned by Brother Peter S. Sherner which he offered as a recreational place for ward celebration. On the 24th of July this was the place. All gathered at the meeting house early in the morning and marched down to the grove. Brother Jesse Brown, a member of the Mormon Battalion, marched in front carrying a giant sun flower stalk, and also Brother Alexander Brown made a speech about how they and their father, Captain James Brown, were the first to plow a furrow of ground on the site of Ogden City. We had a program of songs and speeches, music by a band. In the afternoon games, races, swings and other amusements and refreshments, and all together a gala day was passed.”[45a]

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1896 STATEHOOD AND MISSIONARIES

On January 4, 1896, President Cleveland proclaimed Utah a state on an equal footing with the other states of the Union. Finally! Utahns throughout the new 45th state celebrated.

Statehood and a new house and creamery built at 1417 Washington Blvd. with the important year of 1896 inscribed; photo 2018.

Many missionaries were sent from Lynne during the last half of the 1890s. Carl Yohan Renstron, Peter Sherner, John Peter Lofgren, and Alex L. Holmgren were sent to Scandinavia. William Dudley Shaw, William Cyrus, and William C. Field were sent to the eastern states. [46]

1897 On July 24th Utah celebrated the 50 year anniversary of the arrival of the pioneers

Rozina Shaw Sherner’s souvenir of the Jubilee in 1897 is pictured above; the celebration extended five days, from July 20th to the 25th.

1900 LYNNE WARD

The numerical strength of the Lynne Ward on December 31, 1900, was 503 souls, namely 13 high priests, 17 seventies, 34 elders, 17 teachers, 27 deacons, 279 lay members, 116 children under 8 years of age. The principal officers of the ward at the close of the century were the following: Bishop George Smuin, Rasmus Christofferson 1st counselor, and Walter W. Crane 2nd counselor.[47]

Sunday School: Until the early 1900s, only children were taught by the Sunday School. Eventually, classes were added for the youth of the church; in 1904, an adult Sunday School class was created. David O McKay was 2nd Assistant Stake Superintendent of Sunday Schools in the Weber Stake until he was called as an apostle in April 1906. Because of his devotion to the Sunday School cause, a testimonial was given in his honor by the Weber Stake on May 16, 1906. Many members of the Lynne Ward attended.

Booklet given to attendees of reception for David O. McKay in May 1906, p. 3, 4.

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LYNNE AND SCANDINAVIAN IMMIGRANTS

George Smuin started a nursery business in the 1870s that brought many Scandinavian immigrants to work in his strawberry fields and settle on the east side of the ward. He helped the new settlers establish homes and get employment, and after becoming bishop George Smuin and Rasmus Christofferson continued as special benefactors to the Scandinavian settlers. Rasmus Christofferson was fluent in Danish and served as president of the Scandinavian Society as well as a counselor to Bishop Smuin. Caroline Harrop was called to be a Norwegian interpreter for Relief Society. The Scandinavian people were so appreciative of their help that they surprised Bishop George Smuin and his counselor, Rasmus Christofferson, with special gifts in gratitude of their selfless service, trust, and friendship.[48]

George Smuin house once stood on Adams Ave. between 4th and 5th Streets.

On Aug. 2, 1908, the Lynne Ward was divided. The part lying east of Washington Avenue became part of the new Ogden 8th Ward in the newly created Ogden Stake. The part of the ward lying west of Washington Avenue remained the Lynne Ward in the newly created North Weber Stake.

Bishop Smuin lived on the east side and was released after serving for eighteen years as bishop of the Lynne Ward, the last of the pioneer leadership. The first five bishops or presidents were all pioneers, three of them emigrants. Their combined service spanned 57 years. [49]

1908-1916 LYNNE WARD

Bishop Carl O. Turnquist (1880-1940)

On November 1, 1908, Carl O. Turnquist was ordained a bishop and set apart as the bishop of the Lynne Ward by Orson F. Whitney. He was born April 25, 1880, in Karbenning, Sweden. He was baptized in 1891 at age 11 and emigrated in June of the same year. On June 1, 1908, he married Harriett Sherner, the Five Points daughter of Peter Sherner and Mary Hutchens. Five months later he was called as bishop of the Lynne Ward. Carl and Harriett built a house east of Peter Sherner at 128 2nd Street.[50]

YESTERDAY: 128 2nd St., home of Carl and Harriett Turnquist built in 1908.

TODAY: 128 2nd Street; photo 2012.

On September 5, 1915, the building of a new chapel on the triangle at Five Points commenced under the supervision of Bishop Turnquist. The new red brick building was constructed at the cost of $20,000 and was not dedicated until debt free in 1926.[51]

Building Committee of the Lynne Ward/Ogden 15th Ward on triangle at Five Points; photo courtesy Delma Naeff.

New Lynne Ward chapel at Five Points, 1915-1964; architect William Fife.

TODAY: Bank of Utah

Relief Society President Florence Cunningham Hunter served from 1910 to 1914. Then she was called again and served from 1916 to 1920 and a third time from 1937-1943. [51a]

Florence Cunningham Hunter

1916-1926 LYNNE WARD/OGDEN 15TH WARD

In 1916 Lawrence Sherner was sustained as bishop of the Lynne Ward; he was the son of Peter Sherner and Mary Hutchens. He married Rozina Shaw in 1900 and built the house at 218 2nd Street in 1901.

Larence Sherner and Rozina Shaw Sherner

Lawrence Sherner house at 218 2nd St.; photo c. 1920.

TODAY: 218 2nd St.

About this time the world flu epidemic came unbidden to Five Points, and nearly every family lost a family member to its scourge. Then prohibition became a political issue, and there was growing awareness of the erratic stock market. The men in the bishopric of the Lynne Ward were devoted servants to the community during these difficult times, and the new meetinghouse at Five Points was a real bright spot for the Mormons and many non Mormons too. It was a spacious building, well designed, located on the triangle next to Smoot Park. Ward meetings, interviews and social events were held here. Everyone was proud of the chapel. On Janruary 1, 1924, the name of the ward was changed from Lynne Ward to the Ogden 15th Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[52]

1926-1942 Ogden 15th Ward

Earl Edward Lee (1896- 1974)

On March 24, 1926, Earl E. Lee was ordained a bishop and set apart to preside over the Ogden 15th Ward by David O. McKay. David M. Shaw and Harold L. Ferrin were his counselors. Later Lubin A. Welker and Charles W. Wimmer served as counselors. Earl E. Lee was born September 2, 1896 in Ogden. In 1920 he married Bertha Shaw, and they built a house at 549 Washington Ave. next to Bertha’s parents. In 1941 the public recognized him as the brother of the new apostle, Harold B. Lee.

During the 1920s and the 1930s the ward and stake fostered basketball teams and roadshows.

In September 1934, David O. McKay appointed Thomas M. Irvine of 134 2nd Street, a member of the Ogden 15th Ward, as president of the North Weber Stake.

YESTERDAY AND TODAY: Thomas Irvine house at 134 2nd St., built 1907.

On Jan 18, 1942, the North Weber Stake was divided and the Ogden 15th Ward became part of the newly created Farr West Stake.[53] In February 1943 a social and dance was given in the auditorium of the Lincoln School in honor of the retiring bishopric.

1943-1947, Ogden 15th Ward

On January 31, 1943, Charles W. Wimmer became bishop of the Ogden 15th Ward. He was born in 1889 in Parawon, Utah, and married Neta Benson in 1910. His job brought him to Five Points; he was employed at the Utah State Industrial School for 42 years; he also had worked for the U.S. Postal service at the Ben Lomond station.

He organized the first Boy Scout troop in Weber County and later received the Silver Bear Award. He was long remembered and loved by the youth of the ward. He later became president of the Farr West Stake.[54] Following are copies of the ward news to uplift Saints and remember the soldiers during World War ll.

First Presidency in 1945

1947-1954 OGDEN 15TH WARD

Bishop Samuel Robert (Bert) Cunningham

On December 28, 1947 Samuel Robert (Bert) Cunningham was called as bishop with counselors Joseph Brockbank and Stanley Dabb. At the same time the south part of the ward was moved into the Lomond View Ward. Later Clifton B. Larsen and LeRoy A. Mickelson served as counselors.

Bishop Cunningham began to hold Ward Reunions which helped to unite the members. The chapel at Five Points did not have a cultural hall. He came up with a method to easily remove the pews and put them up in the choir loft so the room could now be used for recreational gatherings, then reset for Sunday meetings.

Rather than remodel the chapel at Five Points, the Church authorities decided to build a new building in another location. Bishop Cunningham initiated the building fund drives to raise the necessary funds. Because the building fund assessment was large and it would be a heavy strain financially on his ward members, he sought other ways to raise money.

1. The Utah-Idaho Central Railroad and the Ogden Transit Streetcar rails had both become obsolete. He procured rights to remove the rails and rail ties for salvage value with members donating time.

2. They let the basement of the chapel be used by the Lion’s Club to hold their monthly meetings with the Relief Society providing a lunch for a fee.

3. With donated labor, the Fifteenth Ward built a home at Second and Pingree Street in Ogden, with the increase from the sale of it going to support the building fund.

Bishop Cunningham had other creative ways to raise the necessary funds. However, the actual planning of the new building itself was carried out by the bishop following his release.

At age eight Bert had been baptized a member of the Church in George Smuin’s Pond between 5th and 6th Street at the bottom of the hill. Following his baptism he spent 17 years inactive. When serving as bishop he gave encouragement and compassion to others like himself who had not advanced as youth in the church. He worked diligently with the Senior Aaronic program, and this resulted in five couples advancing to the Logan Temple to be sealed.[55]

Athelia Spears Irvine

Relief Society President Athelia Spears Irvine served from 1950-1954. Under her leadership the sisters helped with the upkeep and repair of the building and served dinners to clubs and public groups to earn money toward the maintenance of the ward.[55a]

Relief Society President LaVenia Palmer served from 1959 to 1962. During this time the RS presidency labored under much difficulty. The ward building was sold to the Bank of Utah for the Ben Lomond office, and the Fifteenth Ward shared the Harrisville Ward chapel while work continued on the new chapel. Auxillary meetings were held in homes, and it was hard to keep the members together. The sisters helped in building the new chapel, and even put on shingles, and raised money by giving dinners, selling Watkins products and Christmas cards. By 1962 the new ward building at 133 Childs Ave. was completed. [55b]

The former Ogden 15th Ward became Bank of Utah ; photo 1986.

TODAY Bank of Utah; photo 2004.

1962-1967

On January 13, 1962, Menno R. Penner became bishop of the Ogden 15th Ward with Theron Hill and Alma Swann as counselors. Meetings were now held in the new building on Childs Ave. but fund raisers continued to finish paying off debts. Thora Hill served as Relief Society president from 1962-1963. To raise money for the building fund the sisters had one of the most successful bazaars ever held, raising $150.

Elsie Strong served as RS president from 1963-1964. Because of the success of the bazaar the previous year another Special Bazaar was held, raising $399.95.

On January 19, 1964, President N. Eldon Tanner dedicated the new brick church building serving the Ogden Fifteenth Ward, Lomond View Ward and the Farr West Stake Center. The cost was $420,700.

Stake center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 113 Childs Ave., was dedicated in Jan. 1964.

Settlement of Lynne plaque dedicated by Daughters of the Utah Pioneers in 1963; displayed by S. front entrance of the new chapel.

1967-1971

On October 22, 1967, Alton F. Richards was made bishop with Joseph C. Brockbank and Michael Mcfarlane as counselors.

1971-1978

On July 11, 1971, Theron N. Hill was sustained as bishop with Roscoe Palmer and Ferril Naef as counselors. Due to the accidental death of Roscoe Palmer, Melvin Rogers was sustained as the new counselor.

1978-1983

On January 15, 1978, Alma G. Swann was sustained as bishop with Derwin Orgill and Glen Ralphs as counselors.

1983-1985

On February 27, 1983, Rich Humphreys was sustained as bishop with John Griffin and Scott Barrow as counselors.

1985- 1988

On November 3, 1985, LeRoy Racham was sustained as bishop with Nick Baker Jr. and Derwin J. Orgill as counselors. [56]

1988-1992

In February 1988 Derwin J. Orgill was sustained as bishop with Sean McCleve and David Collins as counselors.

1992-1993

In March 1992 Bruce T. Griffin was sustained as bishop with Sean McCleve and Douglass S. Cannon as counselors.

1993-1999

In November 1993 Douglass S. Cannon was sustained as bishop with Paul Nanny and Brent Rose.

1999- 2004

On April 11, 1999, Timothy O’Sean McCleve was sustained as bishop with Oliver Bennett and Jared Bowden.

OGDEN 15TH WARD CHANGED TO HARRISVILLE 8TH WARD APRIL 28, 2002

2004- 2008

In September 2004 Steve Berger was sustained as bishop.

2008- 2010

In February 2008 Travis Marker was sustained as bishop with Andrew Sproul and Christian Hall.

2010- 2013

In May 2010 Jason Michel was sustained as bishop with Taylor Herrin and Eric Hadfield (later Tyler King) as counselors.

2013- present

On September 29, 2013, Victor Saunders was called as bishop with Devin Jorgensen (James Nixon, Drew Shirts) and Leon Trappett (Drew Hadley, Scott Porter) as counselors.

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On the 24th of July 2018, the Harrisville Stake float celebrated the stake’s pioneer history and the coming of the railroad:

[19] Ibid; Tullidge’s History Vol. 11, article on Chauncey West mentioned that soon after West returned in 1863 from presiding over the European Mission, all of Weber County was combined into one ward, but then divided into districts on Oct. 25, 1863; Journal of Nancy Jane Gates, 1869-1869, manuscript, p. 4.